The Hour of the Dragon - Robert E. Howard (great reads .TXT) 📗

I learned of the Heart of Ahriman.

Then for a year I sought its hiding-place, and at last I found it.”

 

“Then why trouble to bring me back to life?” demanded Xaltotun, with

his piercing gaze fixed on the priests. “Why did you not employ the

Heart to further your own power?”

 

“Because no man today knows the secrets of the Heart,” answered

Orastes. “Not even in legends live the arts by which to loose its full

powers. I knew it could restore life; of its deeper secrets I am

ignorant. I merely used it to bring you back to life. It is the use of

your knowledge we seek. As for the Heart, you alone know its awful

secrets.”

 

Xaltotun shook his head, staring broodingly into the flaming depths.

 

“My necromantic knowledge is greater than the sum of all the knowledge

of other men,” he said; “yet I do not know the full power of the

jewel. I did not invoke it in the old days; I guarded it lest it be

used against me. At last it was stolen, and in the hands of a

feathered shaman of the barbarians it defeated all my mighty sorcery.

Then it vanished, and I was poisoned by the jealous priests of Stygia

before I could learn where it was hidden.”

 

“It was hidden in a cavern below the temple of Mitra, in Tarantia,”

said Orastes. “By devious ways I discovered this, after I had located

your remains in Set’s subterranean temple in Stygia.

 

“Zamorian thieves, partly protected by spells I learned from sources

better left unmentioned, stole your mummy-case from under the very

talons of those which guarded it in the dark, and by camel-caravan and

galley and ox-wagon it came at last to this city.

 

“Those same thieves-or rather those of them who still lived after

their frightful quest-stole the Heart of Ahriman from its haunted

cavern below the temple of Mitra, and all the skill of men and the

spells of sorcerers nearly failed. One man of them lived long enough

to reach me and give the jewel into my hands, before he died slavering

and gibbering of what he had seen in that accursed crypt. The thieves

of Zamora are the most faithful of men to their trust. Even with my

conjurements, none but them could have stolen the Heart from where it

has lain in demon-guarded darkness since the fall of Acheron, three

thousand years ago.”

 

Xaltotun lifted his lion-like head and stared far off into space, as

if plumbing the lost centuries.

 

“Three thousand years!” he muttered. “Set! Tell me what has chanced in

the world.”

 

“The barbarians who overthrew Acheron set up new kingdoms,” quoted

Orastes. “Where the empire had stretched now rose realms called

Aquilonia, and Nemedia, and Argos, from the tribes that founded them.

The older kingdoms of Ophir, Corinthia and western Koth, which had

been subject to the kings of Acheron, regained their independence with

the fall of the empire.”

 

“And what of the people of Acheron?” demanded Orastes. “When I fled

into Stygia, Python was in ruins, and all the great, purple-towered

cities of Acheron fouled with blood and trampled by the sandals of the

barbarians.”

 

“In the hills small groups of folk still boast descent from Acheron,”

answered Orastes. “For the rest, the tide of my barbarian ancestors

rolled over them and wiped them out. They-my ancestors-had suffered

much from the kings of Acheron.”

 

A grim and terrible smile curled the Pythonian’s lips.

 

“Aye! Many a barbarian, both man and woman, died screaming on the

altar under this hand. I have seen their heads piled to make a pyramid

in the great square in Python when the kings returned from the west

with their spoils and naked captives.”

 

“Aye. And when the day of reckoning came, the sword was not spared. So

Acheron ceased to be, and purple-towered Python became a memory of

forgotten days. But the younger kingdoms rose on the imperial ruins

and waxed great. And now we have brought you back to aid us to rule

these kingdoms, which, if less strange and wonderful than Acheron of

old, are yet rich and powerful, well worth fighting for. Look!”

Orastes unrolled before the stranger a map drawn cunningly on vellum.

 

Xaltotun regarded it, and then shook his head, baffled.

 

“The very outlines of the land are changed. It is like some familiar

thing seen in a dream, fantastically distorted.”

 

“Howbeit,” answered Orastes, tracing with his forefinger, “here is

Belverus, the capital of Nemedia, in which we now are. Here run the

boundaries of the land of Nemedia. To the south and southeast are

Ophir and Corinthia, to the east Brythunia, to the west Aquilonia.”

 

“It is the map of a world I do not know,” said Xaltotun softly, but

Orastes did not miss the lurid fire of hate that flickered in his dark

eyes.

 

“It is a map you shall help us change,” answered Orastes. “It is our

desire first to set Tarascus on the throne of Nemedia. We wish to

accomplish this without strife, and in such a way that no suspicion

will rest on Tarascus. We do not wish the land to be torn by civil

wars, but to reserve all our power for the conquest of Aquilonia.

 

“Should King Nimed and his sons die naturally, in a plague for

instance, Tarascus would mount the throne as the next heir, peacefully

and unopposed.”

 

Xaltotun nodded, without replying, and Orastes continued.

 

“The other task will be more difficult. We cannot set Valerius on the

Aquilonian throne without a war, and that kingdom is a formidable foe.

Its people are a hardy, war-like race, toughened by continual wars

with the Picts, Zingarians and Cimmerians. For five hundred years

Aquilonia and Nemedia have intermittently waged war, and the ultimate

advantage has always lain with the Aquilonians.

 

“Their present king is the most renowned warrior among the western

nations. He is an outlander, an adventurer who seized the crown by

force during a time of civil strife, strangling King Namedides with

his own hands, upon the very throne. His name is Conan, and no man can

stand before him in battle.

 

“Valerius is now the rightful heir of the throne. He had been driven

into exile by his royal kinsman, Namedides, and has been away from his

native realm for years, but he is of the blood of the old dynasty, and

many of the barons would secretly hail the overthrow of Conan, who is

a nobody without royal or even noble blood. But the common people are

loyal to him, and the nobility of the outlying provinces. Yet if his

forces were overthrown in the battle that must first take place, and

Conan himself slain, I think it would not be difficult to put Valerius

on the throne. Indeed, with Conan slain, the only center of the

government would be gone. He is not part of a dynasty, but only a lone

adventurer.”

 

“I wish that I might see this king,” mused Xaltotun, glancing toward a

silvery mirror which formed one of the panels of the wall. This mirror

cast no reflection, but Xaltotun’s expression showed that he

understood its purpose, and Orastes nodded with the pride a good

craftsman takes in the recognition of his accomplishments by a master

of his craft.

 

“I will try to show him to you,” he said. And seating himself before

the mirror, he gazed hypnotically into its depths, where presently a

dim shadow began to take shape.

 

It was uncanny, but those watching knew it was no more than the

reflected image of Orastes’ thought, embodied in that mirror as a

wizard’s thoughts are embodied in a magic crystal. It floated hazily,

then leaped into startling clarity-a tall man, mightily shouldered and

deep of chest, with a massive corded neck and heavily muscled limbs.

He was clad in silk and velvet, with the royal lions of Aquilonia

worked in gold upon his rich jupon, and the crown of Aquilonia shone

on his square-cut black mane; but the great sword at his side seemed

more natural to him than the regal accouterments. His brow was low and

broad, his eyes a volcanic blue that smoldered as if with some inner

fire. His dark, scarred, almost sinister face was that of a fighting-man, and his velvet garments could not conceal the hard, dangerous

lines of his limbs.

 

“That man is no Hyborian!” exclaimed Xaltotun.

 

“No; he is a Cimmerian, one of those wild tribesmen who dwell in the

gray hills of the north.”

 

“I fought his ancestors of old,” muttered Xaltotun. “Not even the

kings of Acheron could conquer them.”

 

“They still remain a terror to the nations of the south,” answered

Orastes. “He is a true son of that savage race, and has proved

himself, thus far, unconquerable.”

 

Xaltotun did not reply; he sat staring down at the pool of living fire

that shimmered in his hand. Outside, the hound howled again, long and

shudderingly.