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Title: Jewels of Gwahlur

Author: Robert E. Howard

Release date: March 1, 2013 [eBook #42236]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42236

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEWELS OF
GWAHLUR ***

JEWELS OF GWAHLUR

By Robert E. Howard
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird Tales
March 1935. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

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 of 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 held an occupant. A shriveled 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, river-laced 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.
This 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 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 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
common men. None but the priests dared approach the haunted vale within
a distance of many miles. 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 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 race forth from their stronghold to mingle with and be absorbed by
the 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 primordial; 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 startlingly 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 door 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 to 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 he
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 through
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 Zembabwei
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 should 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 away 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, and the credulous acolytes 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.
These characters were puzzling, at once familiar and unintelligible, and
presently he discovered the reason. They were the characters of archaic
Pelishtim, 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: Bît-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 Bît-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 Bît-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 Pelishtim, Bît-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 Bît-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 were more than a hundred years old. Bît-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.
Startlingly, 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, stared 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 footprints, 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 darkness he
shot, into black icy water that gripped him and whirled him away with
breathless speed.

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 even 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 extended 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 now drew closer and closer inshore, fighting furiously for
every inch. Now he was even with the ladder 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 Bît-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 shirt. 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 gaped up at
him inscrutably, dark, lustrous, mystical. He glared in frozen
speechlessness.
She sat up with a supple ease, still holding his ensorceled 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, get 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
impostor?' 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 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."'
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 room full 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. That 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, his head would scarcely top the
Cimmerian's shoulder; 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.

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 Bît-Yakin and his
mysterious servants. Bît-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 Bît-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 other 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 leopard-skin 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.
Gorulga'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
his 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 these 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: 'Oh, 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, oh 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, impersonal, though the
Cimmerian 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. Oh 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 priest'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 the 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 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 bale-fire. '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 short 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 that offered itself
to the Cimmerian, 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,
propping 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 Pelishtim; he had seen
frescoes of identical characteristics on the walls of Asgalun. But the scenes
depicted had no connection with anything Pelishtim, 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 were other

figures, too—figures that moved through the deserted palace, did the
bidding of the Pelishtim, 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 pattern clicked into place. The mystery
of Bît-Yakin was a mystery no longer, nor the riddle of Bît-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 carven 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 door, 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 blood-letting.
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.

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 shades 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
sign 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 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 henchmen 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 silently 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
the Cimmerian 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 blue 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, re-echoing 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 Dragon 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 a stone pillar, and her thick hair, fastened 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.'
He 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 phosphorus
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 Pelishtim,
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 Bît-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. Bît-Yakin was a Pelishtim 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. Bît-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 Pelishtim 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. Bît-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 them, 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 Bît-Yakin do. Doubtless there's a sealed chamber
somewhere where the silks are kept from decay. They clothed the goddess
and brought her back to the oracle room after Zargheba had stolen her. And
by the way, they took off Zargheba's head and hung it 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 Bît-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, an 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 carven 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 could 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 across the altar, his brains oozing from his
crushed skull. And then the servants of Bît-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 Bît-Yakin. His glimpse
of them in action had dispelled any illusion 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 that 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.
Halfway across the upper span he saw a gray deformed shape. One of the
servants of Bît-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 Pelishtim
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 its 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 Bît-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 twisted body fell halfway 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 wildly 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 labyrinth 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 on the 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 Bît-Yakin had already vanished. A
splash, a jetting flash of foam marked where the Teeth of Gwahlur
disappeared for ever from the sight of the 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 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!'

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