The Hour of the Dragon Read online

  16

  Black-Walled Khemi

  The _Venturer_ swept southward like a living thing, her oars pulled nowby free and willing hands. She had been transformed from a peacefultrader into a war-galley, insofar as the transformation was possible.Men sat at the benches now with swords at their sides and gilded helmetson their kinky heads. Shields were hung along the rails, and sheafs ofspears, bows and arrows adorned the mast. Even the elements seemed towork for Conan now; the broad purple sail bellied to a stiff breeze thatheld day by day, needing little aid from the oars.

  But though Conan kept a man on the masthead day and night, they did notsight a long, low, black galley fleeing southward ahead of them. Day byday the blue waters rolled empty to their view, broken only byfishing-craft which fled like frightened birds before them, at sight ofthe shields hung along the rail. The season for trading was practicallyover for the year, and they sighted no other ships.

  When the lookout did sight a sail, it was to the north, not the south.Far on the skyline behind them appeared a racing-galley, with fullspread of purple sail. The blacks urged Conan to turn and plunder it,but he shook his head. Somewhere south of him a slim black galley wasracing toward the ports of Stygia. That night, before darkness shutdown, the lookout's last glimpse showed him the racing-galley on thehorizon, and at dawn it was still hanging on their tail, afar off, tinyin the distance. Conan wondered if it was following him, though he couldthink of no logical reason for such a supposition. But he paid littleheed.

  Each day that carried him farther southward filled him with fiercerimpatience. Doubts never assailed him. As he believed in the rise andset of the sun he believed that a priest of Set had stolen the Heart ofAhriman. And where would a priest of Set carry it but to Stygia? Theblacks sensed his eagerness, and toiled as they had never toiled underthe lash, though ignorant of his goal. They anticipated a red career ofpillage and plunder and were content. The men of the southern isles knewno other trade; and the Kushites of the crew joined whole-heartedly inthe prospect of looting their own people, with the callousness of theirrace. Blood-ties meant little; a victorious chieftain and personal gaineverything.

  Soon the character of the coastline changed. No longer they sailed paststeep cliffs with blue hills marching behind them. Now the shore was theedge of broad meadowlands which barely rose above the water's edge andswept away and away into the hazy distance. Here were few harbors andfewer ports, but the green plain was dotted with the cities of theShemites; green sea, lapping the rim of the green plains, and theziggurats of the cities gleaming whitely in the sun, some small in thedistance.

  Through the grazing-lands moved the herds of cattle, and squat, broadriders with cylindrical helmets and curled blue-black beards, with bowsin their hands. This was the shore of the lands of Shem, where there wasno law save as each city-state could enforce its own. Far to theeastward, Conan knew, the meadowlands gave way to desert, where therewere no cities and the nomadic tribes roamed unhindered.

  Still as they plied southward, past the changeless panorama ofcity-dotted meadowland, at last the scenery again began to alter. Clumpsof tamarind appeared, the palm groves grew denser. The shoreline becamemore broken, a marching rampart of green fronds and trees, and behindthem rose bare, sandy hills. Streams poured into the sea, and alongtheir moist banks vegetation grew thick and of vast variety.

  So at last they passed the mouth of a broad river that mingled its flowwith the ocean, and saw the great black walls and towers of Khemi riseagainst the southern horizon.

  The river was the Styx, the real border of Stygia. Khemi was Stygia'sgreatest port, and at that time her most important city. The king dweltat more ancient Luxur, but in Khemi reigned the priestcraft; though mensaid the center of their dark religion lay far inland, in a mysterious,deserted city near the bank of the Styx. This river, springing from somenameless source far in the unknown lands south of Stygia, ran northwardfor a thousand miles before it turned and flowed westward for somehundreds of miles, to empty at last into the ocean.

  The _Venturer_, showing no lights, stole past the port in the night, andbefore dawn discovered her, anchored in a small bay a few miles south ofthe city. It was surrounded by marsh, a green tangle of mangroves, palmsand lianas, swarming with crocodiles and serpents. Discovery wasextremely unlikely. Conan knew the place of old; he had hidden therebefore, in his corsair days.

  As they slid silently past the city whose great black bastions rose onthe jutting prongs of land which locked the harbor, torches gleamed andsmoldered luridly, and to their ears came the low thunder of drums. Theport was not crowded with ships, as were the harbors of Argos. TheStygians did not base their glory and power upon ships and fleets.Trading-vessels and war-galleys, indeed, they had, but not in proportionto their inland strength. Many of their craft plied up and down thegreat river, rather than along the sea-coasts.

  The Stygians were an ancient race, a dark, inscrutable people, powerfuland merciless. Long ago their rule had stretched far north of the Styx,beyond the meadowlands of Shem, and into the fertile uplands nowinhabited by the peoples of Koth and Ophir and Argos. Their borders hadmarched with those of ancient Acheron. But Acheron had fallen, and thebarbaric ancestors of the Hyborians had swept southward in wolfskins andhorned helmets, driving the ancient rulers of the land before them. TheStygians had not forgotten.

  * * * * *

  All day the _Venturer_ lay at anchor in the tiny bay, walled in withgreen branches and tangled vines through which flitted gay-plumed,harsh-voiced birds, and among which glided bright-scaled, silentreptiles. Toward sundown a small boat crept out and down along theshore, seeking and finding that which Conan desired--a Stygian fishermanin his shallow, flat-prowed boat.

  They brought him to the deck of the _Venturer_--a tall, dark, rangilybuilt man, ashy with fear of his captors, who were ogres of that coast.He was naked except for his silken breeks, for, like the Hyrkanians,even the commoners and slaves of Stygia wore silk; and in his boat was awide mantle such as these fishermen flung about their shoulders againstthe chill of the night.

  He fell to his knees before Conan, expecting torture and death.

  'Stand on your legs, man, and quit trembling,' said the Cimmerianimpatiently, who found it difficult to understand abject terror. 'Youwon't be harmed. Tell me but this: has a galley, a black racing-galleyreturning from Argos, put into Khemi within the last few days?'

  'Aye, my lord,' answered the fisherman. 'Only yesterday at dawn thepriest Thutothmes returned from a voyage far to the north. Men say hehas been to Messantia.'

  'What did he bring from Messantia?'

  'Alas, my lord, I know not.'

  'Why did he go to Messantia?' demanded Conan.

  'Nay, my lord, I am but a common man. Who am I to know the minds of thepriests of Set? I can only speak what I have seen and what I have heardmen whisper along the wharves. Men say that news of great import camesouthward, though of what none knows; and it is well known that the lordThutothmes put off in his black galley in great haste. Now he isreturned, but what he did in Argos, or what cargo he brought back, noneknows, not even the seamen who manned his galley. Men say that he hasopposed Thoth-Amon, who is the master of all priests of Set, and dwellsin Luxur, and that Thutothmes seeks hidden power to overthrow the GreatOne. But who am I to say? When priests war with one another a common mancan but lie on his belly and hope neither treads upon him.'

  Conan snarled in nervous exasperation at this servile philosophy, andturned to his men. 'I'm going alone into Khemi to find this thiefThutothmes. Keep this man prisoner, but see that you do him no hurt.Crom's devils, stop your yowling! Do you think we can sail into theharbor and take the city by storm? I must go alone.'

  Silencing the clamor of protests, he doffed his own garments and donnedthe prisoner's silk breeches and sandals, and the band from the man'shair, but scorned the short fisherman's knife. The common men of Stygiawere not allowed to wear swords, and the mantle was not voluminousenough to hide the C
immerian's long blade, but Conan buckled to his hipa Ghanata knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert men who dwelt tothe south of the Stygians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of finesteel, edged like a razor and long enough to dismember a man.

  Then, leaving the Stygian guarded by the corsairs, Conan climbed intothe fisher's boat.

  'Wait for me until dawn,' he said. 'If I haven't come then, I'll nevercome, so hasten southward to your own homes.'

  As he clambered over the rail, they set up a doleful wail at his going,until he thrust his head back into sight to curse them into silence.Then, dropping into the boat, he grasped the oars and sent the tinycraft shooting over the waves more swiftly than its owner had everpropelled it.