The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (4 page)

“No, by Crom!” answered the barbarian. “But that was as close a
call as I’ve had in a life nowadays tame. Why did not the cursed beast
roar as it charged?”

“All things are strange in this garden,” said Taurus. “The lions
strike silently—and so do other deaths. But come—little sound was
made in that slaying, but the soldiers might have heard, if they are
not asleep or drunk. That beast was in some other part of the garden
and escaped the death of the flowers, but surely there are no more.
We must climb this cord—little need to ask a Cimmerian if he can.”

“If it will bear my weight,” grunted Conan, cleansing his sword on
the grass.

“It will bear thrice my own,” answered Taurus. “It was woven
from the tresses of dead women, which I took from their tombs at
midnight, and steeped in the deadly wine of the upas tree, to give it
strength. I will go first—then follow me closely.”

The Nemedian gripped the rope and, crooking a knee about
it, began the ascent; he went up like a cat, belying the apparent
clumsiness of his bulk. The Cimmerian followed. The cord swayed
and turned on itself, but the climbers were not hindered; both had
made more difficult climbs before. The jewelled rim glittered high
above them, jutting out from the perpendicular of the wall, so that
the cord hung perhaps a foot from the side of the tower—a fact which
added greatly to the ease of the ascent.

Up and up they went, silently, the lights of the city spreading out
further and further to their sight as they climbed, the stars above
them more and more dimmed by the glitter of the jewels along the
rim. Now Taurus reached up a hand and gripped the rim itself, pulling
himself up and over. Conan paused a moment on the very edge,
fascinated by the great frosty jewels whose gleams dazzled his eyes—
diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, set
thick as stars in the shimmering silver. At a distance their different
gleams had seemed to merge into a pulsing white glare; but now, at
close range, they shimmered with a million rainbow tints and lights,
hypnotizing him with their scintillations.

“There is a fabulous fortune here, Taurus,” he whispered; but the
Nemedian answered impatiently, “Come on! If we secure the Heart,
these and all other things shall be ours.”

Conan climbed over the sparkling rim. The level of the tower’s
top was some feet below the gemmed ledge. It was flat, composed of
some dark blue substance, set with gold that caught the starlight, so
that the whole looked like a wide sapphire flecked with shining gold
dust. Across from the point where they had entered there seemed to
be a sort of chamber, built upon the roof. It was of the same silvery
material as the walls of the tower, adorned with designs worked in
smaller gems; its single door was of gold, its surface cut in scales and
crusted with jewels that gleamed like ice.

Conan cast a glance at the pulsing ocean of lights which spread
far below them, then glanced at Taurus. The Nemedian was drawing
up his cord and coiling it. He showed Conan where the hook had
caught—a fraction of an inch of the point had sunk under a great
blazing jewel on the inner side of the rim.

“Luck was with us again,” he muttered. “One would think that
our combined weight would have torn that stone out. Follow me; the
real risks of the venture begin now. We are in the serpent’s lair, and
we know not where he lies hidden.”

Like stalking tigers they crept across the darkly gleaming floor and halted outside the sparkling door. With a deft and cautious hand Taurus tried it. It gave without resistance, and the companions looked in, tensed for anything. Over the Nemedian’s shoulder Conan had a glimpse of a glittering chamber, the walls, ceiling, and floor of which were crusted with great, white jewels, which lighted it brightly and which seemed its only illumination. It seemed empty of life.

“Before we cut off our last retreat,” hissed Taurus, “go you to the
rim and look over on all sides; if you see any soldiers moving in the
gardens, or anything suspicious, return and tell me. I will await you
within this chamber.”

Conan saw scant reason in this, and a faint suspicion of his
companion touched his wary soul, but he did as Taurus requested.
As he turned away, the Nemedian slipped inside the door and drew it
shut behind him. Conan crept about the rim of the tower, returning
to his starting point without having seen any suspicious movement in
the vaguely waving sea of leaves below. He turned toward the door—
suddenly from within the chamber there sounded a strangled cry.

The Cimmerian leaped forward, electrified—the gleaming door
swung open, and Taurus stood framed in the cold blaze behind him.
He swayed and his lips parted, but only a dry rattle burst from his
throat. Catching at the golden door for support, he lurched out upon
the roof, then fell headlong, clutching at his throat. The door swung
to behind him.

Conan, crouching like a panther at bay, saw nothing in the room
behind the stricken Nemedian, in the brief instant the door was partly
open—unless it was not a trick of the light which made it seem as if
a shadow darted across the gleaming floor. Nothing followed Taurus
out on the roof, and Conan bent above the man.

The Nemedian stared up with dilated, glazing eyes, that somehow
held a terrible bewilderment. His hands clawed at his throat, his lips
slobbered and gurgled; then suddenly he stiffened, and the astounded
Cimmerian knew that he was dead. And he felt that Taurus had died
without knowing what manner of death had stricken him. Conan
glared bewilderedly at the cryptic golden door. In that empty room,
with its glittering jewelled walls, death had come to the prince of
thieves as swiftly and mysteriously as he had dealt doom to the lions
in the gardens below.

Gingerly the barbarian ran his hands over the man’s half-naked
body, seeking a wound. But the only marks of violence were between
his shoulders, high up near the base of his bull neck—three small
wounds, which looked as if three nails had been driven deep in the
flesh and withdrawn. The edges of these wounds were black, and
a faint smell of putrefaction was evident. Poisoned darts? thought
Conan—but in that case the missiles should be still in the wounds.

Cautiously he stole towards the golden door, pushed it open, and
looked inside. The chamber lay empty, bathed in the cold, pulsing
glow of the myriad jewels. In the very centre of the ceiling he idly
noted a curious design—a black eight-sided pattern, in the centre of
which four gems glittered with a red flame unlike the white blaze of
the other jewels. Across the room there was another door, like the
one in which he stood, except that it was not carved in the scale
pattern. Was it from that door that death had come?—and having
struck down its victim, had it retreated by the same way?

Closing the door behind him, the Cimmerian advanced into the
chamber. His bare feet made no sound on the crystal floor. There
were no chairs or tables in the chamber, only three or four silken
couches, embroidered with gold and worked in strange serpentine
designs, and several silver-bound mahogany chests. Some were sealed
with heavy golden locks; others lay open, their carven lids thrown
back, revealing heaps of jewels in a careless riot of splendour to
the Cimmerian’s astounded eyes. Conan swore beneath his breath;
already he had looked upon more wealth that night than he had ever
dreamed existed in all the world, and he grew dizzy thinking of what
must be the value of the jewel he sought.

He was in the centre of the room now, going stooped forward,
head thrust out warily, sword advanced, when again death struck at
him soundlessly. A flying shadow that swept across the gleaming floor
was his only warning, and his instinctive sidelong leap all that saved
his life. He had a flashing glimpse of a hairy black horror that swung
past him with a clashing of frothing fangs, and something splashed on
his bare shoulder that burned like drops of liquid hell-fire. Springing
back, sword high, he saw the horror strike the floor, wheel, and scuttle
towards him with appalling speed—a gigantic black spider, such as
men see only in nightmare dreams.

It was as large as a pig, and its eight thick hairy legs drove its
ogreish body over the floor at headlong pace; its four evilly gleaming
eyes shone with a horrible intelligence, and its fangs dripped venom
that Conan knew, from the burning of his shoulder where only a few
drops had splashed as the thing struck and missed, was laden with
swift death. This was the killer that had dropped from its perch in the
middle of the ceiling on a strand of web, on the neck of the Nemedian.
Fools that they were, not to have suspected that the upper chambers
would be guarded as well as the lower!

These thoughts flashed briefly through Conan’s mind as the
monster rushed. He leaped high, and it passed beneath him, wheeled,
and charged back. This time he evaded its rush with a sidewise leap
and struck back like a cat. His sword severed one of the hairy legs,
and again he barely saved himself as the monstrosity swerved at him,
fangs clicking fiendishly. But the creature did not press the pursuit;
turning, it scuttled across the crystal floor and ran up the wall to the
ceiling, where it crouched for an instant, glaring down at him with
its fiendish red eyes. Then without warning it launched itself through
space, trailing a strand of slimy greyish stuff.

Conan stepped back to avoid the hurtling body—then ducked
frantically, just in time to escape being snared by the flying web-rope.
He saw the monster’s intent and sprang towards the door, but it was
quicker, and a sticky strand cast across the door made him a prisoner.
He dared not try to cut it with his sword; he knew the stuff would
cling to the blade; and, before he could shake it loose, the fiend would
be sinking its fangs into his back.

Then began a desperate game, the wits and quickness of the man
matched against the fiendish craft and speed of the giant spider. It
no longer scuttled across the floor in a direct charge, or swung its
body through the air at him. It raced about the ceiling and the walls,
seeking to snare him in the long loops of sticky grey web-strands,
which it flung with a devilish accuracy. These strands were thick as
ropes, and Conan knew that once they were coiled about him, his
desperate strength would not be enough to tear him free before the
monster struck.

All over the chamber went on that devil’s dance, in utter silence
except for the quick breathing of the man, the low scuff of his bare
feet on the shining floor, the castanet rattle of the monstrosity’s fangs.
The grey strands lay in coils on the floor; they were looped along the
walls; they overlaid the jewel-chests and silken couches, and hung in
dusky festoons from the jewelled ceiling. Conan’s steel-trap quickness
of eye and muscle had kept him untouched, though the sticky loops
had passed him so close they rasped his naked hide. He knew he
could not always avoid them; he not only had to watch the strands
swinging from the ceiling, but to keep his eye on the floor, lest he trip
in the coils that lay there. Sooner or later a gummy loop would writhe
about him, pythonlike, and then, wrapped like a cocoon, he would lie
at the monster’s mercy.

The spider raced across the chamber floor, the grey rope waving
out behind it. Conan leaped high, clearing a couch—with a quick
wheel the fiend ran up the wall, and the strand, leaping off the floor
like a live thing, whipped about the Cimmerian’s ankle. He caught
himself on his hands as he fell, jerking frantically at the web which
held him like a pliant vice, or the coil of a python. The hairy devil was
racing down the wall to complete its capture. Stung to frenzy, Conan
caught up a jewel chest and hurled it with all his strength. Full in the
midst of the branching black legs the massive missile struck, smashing
against the wall with a muffled sickening crunch. Blood and greenish
slime spattered, and the shattered mass fell with the burst gem-chest
to the floor. The crushed black body lay among the flaming riot of
jewels that spilled over it; the hairy legs moved aimlessly, the dying
eyes glittered redly among the twinkling gems.