A Witch Shall Be Born Once More
Page 5
place, Khauran is a kingdom of no great size, one of the many principalities which at one time formed the eastern part of the empire of Koth, and which later regained the independence which was theirs at a still earlier age. This part of the world is made up of these tiny realms, diminutive in comparison with the great kingdoms of the West, or the great sultanates of the farther East, but important in their control of the caravan routes, and in the wealth concentrated in them.'
'Khauran is the most southeasterly of these principalities, bordering on the very deserts of eastern Shem. The city of Khauran is the only city of any magnitude in the realm, and stands within sight of the river which separates the grasslands from the sandy desert, like a watchtower to guard the fertile meadows behind it. The land is so rich that it yields three and four crops a year, and the plains north and west of the city are dotted with villages. To one accustomed to the great plantations and stock-farms of the West, it is strange to see these tiny fields and vineyards; yet wealth in grain and fruit pours from them as from a horn of plenty. The villagers are agriculturists, nothing else. Of a mixed, aboriginal race, they are unwarlike, unable to protect themselves, and forbidden the possession of arms. Dependent wholly upon the soldiers of the city for protection, they are helpless under the present conditions. So the savage revolt of the rural sections, which would be a certainty in any Western nation, is here impossible.
'They toil supinely under the iron hand of Constantia, and her black smooth Shemites ride incessantly through the fields, with whips in their hands, like the slave-drivers of the black serfs who toil in the plantations of southern Zingara.'
'Nor do the people of the city fare any better. Their wealth is stripped from them, their fairest daughters taken to glut the insatiable lust of Constantia and her mercenaries. These women are utterly without mercy or compassion, possessed of all the characteristics our armies learned to abhor in our wars against the Shemitish allies of Argos--inhuman cruelty, lust, and wild-beast ferocity. The people of the city are Khauran's ruling caste, predominantly Hyborian, and valorous and war-like. But the treachery of their king delivered them into the hands of their oppressors. The Shemites are the only armed force in Khauran, and the most hellish punishment is inflicted on any Khaurani found possessing weapons. A systematic persecution to destroy the young Khaurani women able to bear arms has been savagely pursued. Many have ruthlessly been slaughtered, others sold as slaves to the Turanians. Thousands have fled the kingdom and either entered the service of other rulers, or become outlaws, lurking in numerous bands along the borders.'
'At present there is some possibility of invasion from the desert, which is inhabited by tribes of Shemitish nomads. The mercenaries of Constantia are women from the Shemitish cities of the west, Pelishtim, Anakim, Akkharim, and are ardently hated by the Zuagirs and other wandering tribes. As you know, good Alcemidesia, the countries of these barbarians are divided into the western meadowlands which stretch to the distant ocean, and in which rise the cities of the town-dwellers, and the eastern deserts, where the lean nomads hold sway; there is incessant warfare between the dwellers of the cities and the dwellers of the desert.'
'The Zuagirs have fought with and raided Khauran for centuries, without success, but they resent its conquest by their western kin. It is rumored that their natural antagonism is being fomented by the woman who was formerly the captain of the king's guard, and who, somehow escaping the hate of Constantia, who actually had her upon the cross, fled to the nomads. She is called Conyn, and is herself a barbarian, one of those gloomy Cimmerians whose ferocity our soldiers have more than once learned to their bitter cost. It is rumored that she has become the right-hand woman of Olgerda Vladislav, the kozak adventurer who wandered down from the northern steppes and made herself chief of a band of Zuagirs. There are also rumors that this band has increased vastly in the last few months, and that Olgerda, incited no doubt by this Cimmerian, is even considering a raid on Khauran.
'It can not be anything more than a raid, as the Zuagirs are without siege-machines, or the knowledge of investing a city, and it has been proven repeatedly in the past that the nomads in their loose formation, or rather lack of formation, are no match in hand-to-hand fighting for the well-disciplined, fully-armed warriors of the Shemitish cities. The natives of Khauran would perhaps welcome this conquest, since the nomads could deal with them no more harshly than their present mistresses, and even total extermination would be preferable to the suffering they have to endure. But they are so cowed and helpless that they could give no aid to the invaders.
'Their plight is most wretched. Taramin, apparently possessed of a demon, stops at nothing. He has abolished the worship of Ishtar, and turned the temple into a shrine of idolatry. He has destroyed the ivory image of the god which these eastern Hyborians worship (and which, inferior as it is to the true religion of Mitra which we Western nations recognize, is still superior to the devil-worship of the Shemites) and filled the temple of Ishtar with obscene images of every imaginable sort--gods and godes of the night, portrayed in all the salacious and perverse poses and with all the revolting characteristics that a degenerate brain could conceive. Many of these images are to be identified as foul deities of the Shemites, the Turanians, the Vendhyans, and the Khitans, but others are reminiscent of a hideous and half-remembered antiquity, vile shapes forgotten except in the most obscure legends. Where the king gained the knowledge of them I dare not even hazard a guess.
'He has instituted human sacrifice, and since his mating with Constantia, no less then five hundred women, men and children have been immolated. Some of these have died on the altar he has set up in the temple, himself wielding the sacrificial dagger, but most have met a more horrible doom.
'Taramin has placed some sort of monster in a crypt in the temple. What it is, and whence it came, none knows. But shortly after he had crushed the desperate revolt of his soldiers against Constantia, he spent a night alone in the desecrated temple, alone except for a dozen bound captives, and the shuddering people saw thick, foul-smelling smoke curling up from the dome, heard all night the frenetic chanting of the king, and the agonized cries of his tortured captives; and toward dawn another voice mingled with these sounds--a strident, inhuman croaking that froze the blood of all who heard.
'In the full dawn Taramin reeled drunkenly from the temple, his eyes blazing with demoniac triumph. The captives were never seen again, nor the croaking voice heard. But there is a room in the temple into which none ever goes but the king, driving a human sacrifice before him. And this victim is never seen again. All know that in that grim chamber lurks some monster from the black night of ages, which devours the shrieking humans Taramin delivers up to it.
'I can no longer think of him as a mortal man, but as a rabid he-fiend, crouching in his blood-fouled lair amongst the bones and fragments of his victims, with taloned, crimsoned fingers. That the gods allow his to pursue his awful course unchecked almost shakes my faith in divine justice.'
'When I compare his present conduct with his deportment when first I came to Khauran, seven months ago, I am confused with bewilderment, and almost inclined to the belief held by many of the people--that a demon has possessed the body of Taramin. A young soldier, Valeriusa, had another belief. She believed that a warlock had assumed a form identical with that of Khauran's adored ruler. She believed that Taramin had been spirited away in the night, and confined in some dungeon, and that this being ruling in his place was but a male sorcerer. She swore that she would find the real king, if he still lived, but I greatly fear that she herself has fallen victim to the cruelty of Constantia. She was implicated in the revolt of the palace guards, escaped and remained in hiding for some time, stubbornly refusing to seek safety abroad, and it was during this time that I encountered her and she told me her beliefs.
'But she has disappeared, as so many have, whose fate one dares not conjecture, and I fear she has been apprehended by the spies of Constantia.
'But I must conclude this letter and slip it out
of the city by means of a swift carrier-pigeon, which will carry it to the post whence I purchased it, on the borders of Koth. By rider and camel-train it will eventually come to you. I must haste, before dawn. It is late, and the stars gleam whitely on the gardened roofs of Khauran. A shuddering silence envelops the city, in which I hear the throb of a sullen drum from the distant temple. I doubt not that Taramin is there, concocting more devilry.'
But the savant was incorrect in her conjecture concerning the whereabouts of the man she called Taramin. The boy whom the world knew as king of Khauran stood in a dungeon, lighted only by a flickering torch which played on his features, etching the diabolical cruelty of his beautiful countenance.
On the bare stone floor before his crouched a figure whose nakedness was scarcely covered with tattered rags.
This figure Salom touched contemptuously with the upturned toe of his gilded sandal, and smiled vindictively as his victim shrank away.
'You do not love my caresses, sweet brother?'
Taramin was still beautiful, in spite of his rags and the imprisonment and abuse of seven weary months. He