Bwatu carefully noted which hut Conan had retired to. As the feast roared on under the glory of the tropical moon, he rose to his own feet, stumbled as if drunken―albeit he was practically sober―and wandered off into the shadows. As soon as he was out of sight, he doubled back through the inky alleyways between the huts. A vagrant ray of moonlight flashed on the keen blade of his dagger―a dagger he had just received from a sailor for the use of one of his women.
Far to the north, in the Oasis of Khajar in Stygia, Thoth-Amon had for hours searched the astral plane for some token of the whereabouts of the precious relic of the serpent-men of ago-lost Valusia. While Menkara and Zarono slept in alcoves beyond the sanctum of his private laboratorium, the mighty Stygian at length perceived the hopelessness of his task. He sat motionless, his cold black gaze brooding on nothingness.
Shadows flowed and flickered within the great orb of crystal, which invisible hands had placed before his seat of power. Dim, wavering radiance, cast by moving figures within the crystal, sent shadows rippling across the sculptured walls of the chamber.
Thoth-Amon had established that the Cobra Crown no longer rested in its ancient hiding-place beneath the stone idol of Tsathoggua the toad-god. Only another party of mariners, landing by accident or design on the Nameless Isle, could have borne off the Crown. By the power of his crystal, Thoth-Amon had searched the island, foot by foot. Not only was the Crown gone; no human beings remained on the island. There was no sign of the Zingaran princess, of whose escape from the Wastrel Zarono had told him. The disappearance of the Crown and of Chabela, as well as the destruction of the idol, all pointed to the intervention by some party unknown.
The silence remained unbroken in the chamber. Shadows flickered across the walls and across the figure that sat on the throne, as motionless as if it, too, had been carved from stone.
XI
Web of Doom
Seldom was Conan of Cimmeria caught napping, but this was one of the times. The mild-tasting but heady beverage sent him into a deep slumber until, belatedly, his primitive sense of danger roused him. Slowly he came awake, foggily aware that something was wrong. For a moment he could not tell what had disturbed him.
Then he knew. A long slit had been cut in the woven reeds which composed the sides of the hut. The slit ran from man-height to the ground, and through the rent the cool night air blew across his sweating body.
Conan reached out and felt for the bundle that he had left lying at his side.
Then, with a curse, he lurched to his feet and peered into the gloom around the hut. The Cobra Crown was gone.
Red fury boiled in Conan's heart; his bellow of rage shook the flimsy walls of the hut. Ripping out his cutlass, he charged out of the hut, cursing sulphurously.
The feast was still in progress for those few warriors still able to stand. The huge fire had burned low. Stars blazed like clustered gems above the nodding palms, and a nearly full moon showed her silver shield. Among the few who were still awake, Conan spied Juma and Sigurd. His shout brought them to their feet.
In swift words, he told what had happened. Since the crown was the only loot they had gathered during this voyage, Conan was stung to roaring rage by his loss.
All the buccaneers were accounted for, although few were conscious. A swift check of the folk of Ku-lalo, however, revealed that one was missing.
'Bwatu! Damballah singe his black soul!' Juma choked wrathfully, furious that one of his own people should have robbed his guest.
'You know the block vdog?' roared Conan, too mad with rage to watch his tongue.
Juma merely nodded grimly, describing the culprit.
'That surly-looking ugly you knocked sprawling back on the beach?' Conan demanded.
'The same. I guess he bore us both a grudge.'
'Or spotted the gems in the bagl' Sigurd commented. 'What's to do? Any idea where the rogue might hide, King Juma? By the bowels of Ahriman and the fiery claws of Shaitan, we should be after him ere he gets more of a start!'
'He would probably make for the land of our enemies, the Matamba.' Juma pointed northeast. 'Further north, Bwatu might fall into the path of the Ghanata slavers, who have been active in these parts of late. He could not, on the other hand, go very far southeast, for thither lies―'
To stand idly by while Juma calmly considered alternatives, while a fabulous fortune was borne ever farther away through the jungle night, was more than the fuming Conan could endure. Abruptly, he broke in on Juma's ponderings.
'Jaw all night, if you will!' he growled. 'Where's the trail to the land of the Matamba?'
'The path out the East Gate forks, and the trail leads northeast―'
Without waiting to hear the rest, Conan charged off toward his hut. On the way, he paused to pick up a water pot and empty it over his head. He came up blowing like a beached sea monster, but his skull ceased to throb and his wits began to clear.
When he raked the black mane of his hair out of his eyes, he saw Chabela, wrapped in a blanket, staring at him from her hut. 'Captain Conan!' she called.
'What has happened? Is the town attacked?'
He shook his head. 'Nothing, girl. Only a princely ransom in cut diamonds, thieved from me as I snored. Back to your pallet, and be quick about it!'
Sigurd came puffing up. 'Lion!' he said. 'Juma and his headmen are trying to rouse the fleetest warriors. Don't start out by yourself into this jungle. The gods know what prowling beasts may be out there, so wait for Juma―'
'Be damned to the lot of you!' snarled Conan, whose eyes burned like those of a hunting beast. 'I am for Bwatu before his trail grows cold, and Crom pity the jungle beast that gets in my way tonight!'
Without further speech, he was off. Like a charging buffalo, he ran for the East Gate and vanished from view.
'Damned Cimmerian temper!' swore Sigurd. He threw an apologetic glance at the princess and flung himself into the darkness after his comrade, calling out: 'Wait for me! Do not try it alone!'
The village was in an uproar. Juma and his chieftains strode among the sleepers, kicking them awake, hauling them to their feet, and bellowing commands.
Thus no eye noted as Chabela slipped back into her hut to don the rough garb with which Conan had furnished her out of the ship's slop chest. Gliding forth again, breeched and booted and armed, she slid into the shadows and quietly made her way to the East Gate.
'If that drunken oaf thinks he can order a royal princess of the House of Ramiro around…' she whispered angrily to herself.
There was, however, another and more compelling reason, besides her pique at Conan's brusque commands, that led her to leave Kulalo and set out alone after Conan. For all his roughness, he had treated her well and protected her. When he promised to return her unharmed to her father, he seemed really to mean it.
Hence she felt that she could trust him much further than she could either his piratical crew or Juma's horde of black barbarians. With this in mind, she faded into the jungle, where the snarl of a hunting leopard echoed through the darkness.
Hours passed as Conan's furious rush carried him several leagues along the trail to Matambaland, leaving Sigurd far behind. When he paused for breath, he considered waiting for the pirate to catch up with him. But then the thought that any pause would let the wily Kushite get even further out of reach of his revenge sent him plunging along the trail with renewed vigor.
Conan knew the Kushite jungles well from that period, a decade earlier, when for a time he had been war chief of the Bamula tribe, further north. Where a less experienced man might think that to venture into the jungle alone was to hurl oneself into the maw of peril, Conan knew better. The great cats, for example, are cunning hunters but not particularly brave. Few will challenge a man alone unless starved or too old and lame to bring down fleeter prey. The very noise that Conan made, pounding along the winding trail, was his best assurance of safety.
The jungle, true, harbored other beasts, some more dangerous than the cats: the hulking
gorilla, the blundering rhinoceros, the burly buffalo, and the mountainous elephant. Being plant eaters, all would usually leave men alone if given a wide enough berth but if startled or crowded were likely to charge.
Luckily, Conan encountered none of these in his pursuit of Bwatu.
As the sky lightened with the approach of dawn, Conan flung himself down to drink from a water hole and to bathe his chest and arms. Thorns and spines had tattered his white blouse and had drawn scarlet scratches across his chest and arms, until his torso streamed with mud, blood, and sweat.
Cursing, he wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, tossed back his black mane, and rested for a moment. Then, growling an oath, he rose and plunged grimly on, trusting to his iron strength. He had tested his endurance many times, in the course of his years of wild adventure, and he knew that he could outlast any common man, even one of the most powerful.
The sun rose over the jungles of Kush and lit a steamy, humid morning. The great cats retired, with bellies full or empty as the case might be, to sleep away the heat of the day.
By the growing light, Conan could see, where the trail was muddy, the fresh prints of long, splayed bare feet. This, he was sure, was the spoor of the fleeing Bwatu. Although the run that Conan had already made would have caused most men to collapse, the sight of these tracks lent extra strength to his limbs.
Soon enough, Chabela regretted her impulsive action in following Conan into the forest. Conan and Sigurd, neither of whom knew that she was following them, soon outdistanced her. At a bend in the trail, she strayed off the path and at once lost all sense of direction. With the setting of the moon, the jungle had become as black as pitch. Beneath the canopy of leaves, she could not see the stars to get a hint of her direction. She wandered helplessly in circles, bumping into trees and tripping over roots and underbrush.
The night was alive with the chirp and click and buzz of nocturnal insects.
Although Chabela feared the wild beasts, she encountered none. But now and then a distant rustle or the crashing of a large body through the brush brought her heart into her mouth.
Toward dawn, trembling with fear and fatigue, the exhausted girl sank down in a mossy glade to rest. Why had she ever done so foolish a thing as to rush off into this trackless maze? Worn out, she presently fell asleep.
She awoke in terror as strong black arms seized her and hauled her to her feet.
She was surrounded by lean black men in ragged robes and turbans. They lashed her arms behind her and muffled her screams with a gag.
Toward mid-mom, Conan caught up with Bwatu, as he had known that he would.
Bwatu, however, was in no state to return the stolen crown to Conan. He was dead―and empty-handed.
The thieving black lay face down on the trail in a puddle of blood. He had been virtually hacked to pieces. Conan squatted over the body and examined the wounds. These seemed to have been made by the blades of steel swords, not by the bronze or flint or ivory points of the native spears. Weapons of bronze and copper are easily dulled and notched by use and hence tend to leave ragged wounds, but these were the clean cuts typical of well-honed steel. The black folk of the Kushite jungles knew not the arts of smelting and forging ferrous metal. Hence iron and steel were rarities this far south, being found only when brought down by trade from the more advanced peoples to the north: the kingdom of Kush, properly so called, and Darfar and Keshan. Conan wondered if the black Amazons had struck down the thief and carried off the crown, thus robbing him both of his property and his revenge. As he rose from his crouch, lips drawn back in a snarl, a weighted net fell upon him from the branches above. Its thick strands enwrapped and pinned his limbs. With a roar of rage, the Cimmerian struck out with his cutlass, but the tough fabric yielded to the blow and closed all the tighter about him.
Like the web of some enormous spider, the net dragged him down and muffled his blows. The robed and turbaned blacks who rose from concealment beside the trail, in a calm and businesslike manner, drew tight the lead lines that tightened the net about Conan like the cocoon of some giant caterpillar. Other men dropped from the branches overhead and quickly clubbed their captive into unconsciousness.
As he fell forward into blackness, the Cimmerian's final thought was to curse himself for a besotted fool. Not in years had he let himself be caught in such a simple trap, netted like a Kushite bush pig. But it was too late for regrets now…
XII
City of Warrior Women
In the Oasis of Khajar, it was pitch-black night. A heavy blanket of cloud overlay the desert, shutting off the rays of the moon, which manifested themselves only as a faint, grey luminescence filtering through the clouds.
It was dark, too, in the throne room of Thoth-Amon. The green flames in the torcheres had dimmed to a mere glow, like that of fireflies. The Stygian sorcerer seemed to slumber on his carven chair, so motionless was he. Had any been present to observe, they would have seen that his muscular chest did not rise and fall. His grim visage was inert and vacant, like an inanimate mask. His body seemed untenanted.
And so it was. Failing to find any clues to the Cobra Crown on the astral plane, Thoth-Amon had freed his ka from its prison of flesh and ascended to the highest plane, the akashic. Here, in this dim, immaterial spirit realm, the laws of time do not obtain. Past, present, and even a cloudy vision of the future lie visible to the all-encompassing glance of the adept, like a four-dimensional map. And here, in a sense, Thoth-Amon's spirit self could 'see' the arrival of the Petrel, the landing of Conan, the awakening of the toad-god, its destruction, the seizure of the Cobra Crown, and Conan's subsequent voyage to the Black Coast. That much Thoth-Amon observed before permitting his ka to descend again to the lower planes of the cosmos. The ka had to return before it altogether lost its connection with its material body.
So Thoth-Amon, reentering his body, felt a prickling sensation spread through his form as numb flesh again became animate. The sensation was like the familiar 'pins and needles' when circulation in a limb is interrupted; but, in the case of the prince of magicians, the tingling spread through his entire body. He stoically endured the pain. Then―'Zaronol Menkaral' Thoth-Amon's voice rolled like thunder through the crypts beneath his palace.
'Eh?' said Zarono, pulling on his doublet as he came from his sleeping chamber, yawning and rubbing his eyes. 'What is it, my lord wizard?' Behind him, Menkara glided silently in.
'Prepare to return to the Black Coast at once. I have discovered the current whereabouts of the Cobra Crown and of your Princess Chabela. Both are in Kulalo, the capital of Juma the Kushite.'
'How got they there?' said Zarono.
'Your fellow ruffian, Conan the Cimmerian, took them―'
'That damned barbarian!' snarled Zarono. 'Ill―'
'If you encounter him, do to him as you will. I have no love for him, for he has caused me no small annoyance by his adventurings. But your main task will be to recapture your princess. Even I cannot control her mind at so great a distance.'
'And the Crown?'
'You may leave the Crown to me.'
'Are you coming with us, sir?'
Thoth-Amon smiled bleakly. 'Nay, not in the flesh. It will require a work of magic that few magicians in the entire world could do, and that will tax my powers to the utmost; but I shall reach Kulalo before you. Waste no time, you two, but gather your gear to set forth at once. Wait not even for daybreak!'
Conan revived in a yile temper. His head ached, as much from overindulgence in Juma's banana liquor as from having been beaten unconscious. Moreover, he was a disarmed and helpless captive, in the hands of slavers. Although this had happened to Conan before, it never failed to rouse him to a state of wild-beast fury.
Hours had passed, to judge by the angle of the sun's rays as they sent an occasional spear of light down through the roof of leaves. From die condition of his arms and legs, which were scraped raw, the burly Cimmerian assumed that he had been dragged through the underbrush to the clearning in
which he now found himself. Heavy manacles bound his wrists. Through the tangle of his disordered mane, he glared about him, noting the number, alertness, and positions of the guards.
He was startled to see Chabela, huddled white-faced and frightened in a cluster of sad-looking blacks. He had no idea of how she had been captured. He did not, however, see Sigurd among the captives. This might or might not be a good thing.
Then, mounted on a lean mare, a tall black in the grey robes of a slaver cantered into the clearing. Like the other slavers, this man was black of skin, but lean and wiry, with sharper-cut features than were usual among the jungle tribes. Conan guessed that the slavers were Ghanatas, of whom Juma had already spoken. This was a nation of nomadic Negroes, who dwelt in the deserts along the southern borders of Stygia. While Shemite and Stygian slavers raided the Ghanatas and other peoples of Kush and Darfar for captives, the Ghanatas in turn raided still farther south, into the equatorial jungles.
The newcomer reined up and exchanged curt words with the man in command of the group that had captured Conan. The latter turned away, snapping his whip and yelling for his men to get the slaves moving.
The captives were herded into a double line. Their manacles were chained together so that no one of them could break free by himself. The giant Cimmerian towered above the surrounding blacks, bending a lionlike glare about him. The mounted slaver ran a cold, disdainful glance over the lot.
'By Zambi,' he grunted, and spat. 'This lot will scarcely bring a fistful of cowrie shells in Gamburur His lieutenant nodded. 'Aye, Lord Mbonani. Methinks they grow feebler year by year. The breeding Stock must be running out…'
Just then, a slaver flicked Conan on the shoulder with his whip. As the whip kissed his skin, the Cimmerian swung into action. Swifter than thought, he reached up with his manacled hands, caught the whip, and pulled with a mighty surge of power.
The Conan Chronology Page 489
