Shadows in Zamboula Read online

  3 Black Hands Gripping

  With an oath the Cimmerian smote the wall a terrific blow with thepommel of his sword, and the marble cracked and chipped. But the hiddendoor did not give way, and reason told him that doubtless it had beenbolted on the other side of the wall. Turning, he sprang across thechamber to one of the ivory doors.

  He lifted his sword to shatter the panels, but on a venture tried thedoor first with his left hand. It swung open easily, and he glared intoa long corridor that curved away into dimness under the weird light ofcensers similar to those in the shrine. A heavy gold bolt showed on thejamb of the door, and he touched it lightly with his finger tips. Thefaint warmness of the metal could have been detected only by a man whosefaculties were akin to those of a wolf. That bolt had been touched--andtherefore drawn--within the last few seconds. The affair was taking onmore and more of the aspect of a baited trap. He might have knownTotrasmek would know when anyone entered the temple.

  To enter the corridor would undoubtedly be to walk into whatever trapthe priest had set for him. But Conan did not hesitate. Somewhere inthat dim-lit interior Zabibi was a captive, and, from what he knew ofthe characteristics of Hanuman's priests, he was sure that she neededhelp badly. Conan stalked into the corridor with a pantherish tread,poised to strike right or left.

  On his left, ivory, arched doors opened into the corridor, and he triedeach in turn. All were locked. He had gone perhaps seventy-five feetwhen the corridor bent sharply to the left, describing the curve thegirl had mentioned. A door opened into this curve, and it gave under hishand.

  He was looking into a broad, square chamber, somewhat more clearlylighted than the corridor. Its walls were of white marble, the floor ofivory, the ceiling of fretted silver. He saw divans of rich satin,gold-worked footstools of ivory, a disk-shaped table of some massive,metal-like substance. On one of the divans a man was reclining, lookingtoward the door. He laughed as he met the Cimmerian's startled glare.

  This man was naked except for a loin-cloth and high-strapped sandals. Hewas brown-skinned, with close-cropped black hair and restless black eyesthat set off a broad, arrogant face. In girth and breadth he wasenormous, with huge limbs on which the great muscles swelled and rippledat each slightest movement. His hands were the largest Conan had everseen. The assurance of gigantic physical strength colored his everyaction and inflection.

  'Why not enter, barbarian?' he called mockingly, with an exaggeratedgesture of invitation.

  Conan's eyes began to smolder ominously, but he trod warily into thechamber, his sword ready.

  'Who the devil are you?' he growled.

  'I am Baal-pteor,' the man answered. 'Once, long ago and in anotherland, I had another name. But this is a good name, and why Totrasmekgave it to me, any temple wench can tell you.'

  'So you're his dog!' grunted Conan. 'Well, curse your brown hide,Baal-pteor, where's the wench you jerked through the wall?'

  'My master entertains her!' laughed Baal-pteor. 'Listen!'

  From beyond a door opposite the one by which Conan had entered theresounded a woman's scream, faint and muffled in the distance.

  'Blast your soul!' Conan took a stride toward the door, then wheeledwith his skin tingling. Baal-pteor was laughing at him, and that laughwas edged with menace that made the hackles rise on Conan's neck andsent a red wave of murder-lust driving across his vision.

  He started toward Baal-pteor, the knuckles on his sword-hand showingwhite. With a swift motion the brown man threw something at him--ashining crystal sphere that glistened in the weird light.

  Conan dodged instinctively, but, miraculously, the globe stopped shortin midair, a few feet from his face. It did not fall to the floor. Ithung suspended, as if by invisible filaments, some five feet above thefloor. And as he glared in amazement, it began to rotate with growingspeed. And as it revolved it grew, expanded, became nebulous. It filledthe chamber. It enveloped him. It blotted out furniture, walls, thesmiling countenance of Baal-pteor. He was lost in the midst of ablinding bluish blur of whirling speed. Terrific winds screamed pastConan, tugging, tearing at him, striving to wrench him from his feet, todrag him into the vortex that spun madly before him.

  With a choking cry Conan lurched backward, reeled, felt the solid wallagainst his back. At the contact the illusion ceased to be. Thewhirling, titanic sphere vanished like a bursting bubble. Conan reeledupright in the silver-ceilinged room, with a gray mist coiling about hisfeet, and saw Baal-pteor lolling on the divan, shaking with silentlaughter.

  'Son of a slut!' Conan lunged at him. But the mist swirled up from thefloor, blotting out that giant brown form. Groping in a rolling cloudthat blinded him, Conan felt a rending sensation of dislocation--andthen room and mist and brown man were gone together. He was standingalone among the high reeds of a marshy fen, and a buffalo was lunging athim, head down. He leaped aside from the ripping scimitar-curved horns,and drove his sword in behind the foreleg, through ribs and heart. Andthen it was not a buffalo dying there in the mud, but the brown-skinnedBaal-pteor. With a curse Conan struck off his head; and the head soaredfrom the ground and snapped beast-like tusks into his throat. For allhis mighty strength he could not tear it loose--he waschoking--strangling; then there was a rush and roar through space, thedislocating shock of an immeasurable impact, and he was back in thechamber with Baal-pteor, whose head was once more set firmly on hisshoulders, and who laughed silently at him from the divan.

  'Mesmerism!' muttered Conan, crouching and digging his toes hard againstthe marble.

  His eyes blazed. This brown dog was playing with him, making sport ofhim! But this mummery, this child's play of mists and shadows ofthought, it could not harm him. He had but to leap and strike and thebrown acolyte would be a mangled corpse under his heel. This time hewould not be fooled by shadows of illusion--but he was.

  A blood-curdling snarl sounded behind him, and he wheeled and struck ina flash at the panther crouching to spring on him from the metal-coloredtable. Even as he struck, the apparition vanished and his blade clasheddeafeningly on the adamantine surface. Instantly he sensed somethingabnormal. The blade stuck to the table! He wrenched at it savagely. Itdid not give. This was no mesmeristic trick. The table was a giantmagnet. He gripped the hilt with both hands, when a voice at hisshoulder brought him about, to face the brown man, who had at last risenfrom the divan.

  Slightly taller than Conan, and much heavier, Baal-pteor loomed beforehim, a daunting image of muscular development. His mighty arms wereunnaturally long, and his great hands opened and closed, twitchingconvulsively. Conan released the hilt of his imprisoned sword and fellsilent, watching his enemy through slitted lids.

  'Your head, Cimmerian!' taunted Baal-pteor. 'I shall take it with mybare hands, twisting it from your shoulders as the head of a fowl istwisted! Thus the sons of Kosala offer sacrifice to Yajur. Barbarian,you look upon a strangler of Yota-pong. I was chosen by the priests ofYajur in my infancy, and throughout childhood, boyhood and youth Itrained in the art of slaying with the naked hands--for only thus arethe sacrifices enacted. Yajur loves blood, and we waste not a drop fromthe victim's veins. When I was a child they gave me infants to throttle;when I was a boy I strangled young girls; as a youth, women, old men andyoung boys. Not until I reached my full manhood was I given a strong manto slay on the altar of Yota-pong.

  'For years I offered the sacrifices to Yajur. Hundreds of necks havesnapped between these fingers--' he worked them before the Cimmerian'sangry eyes. 'Why I fled from Yota-pong to become Totrasmek's servant isno concern of yours. In a moment you will be beyond curiosity. Thepriests of Kosala, the stranglers of Yajur, are strong beyond the beliefof men. And I was stronger than any. With my hands, barbarian, I shallbreak your neck!'

  And like the stroke of twin cobras, the great hands closed on Conan'sthroat. The Cimmerian made no attempt to dodge or fend them away, buthis own hands darted to the Kosalan's bull-neck. Baal-pteor's black eyeswidened as he felt the thick cords of muscles that protected thebarbarian's throat. With a
snarl he exerted his inhuman strength, andknots and lumps and ropes of thews rose along his massive arms. And thena choking gasp burst from him as Conan's fingers locked on his throat.For an instant they stood there like statues, their faces masks ofeffort, veins beginning to stand out purply on their temples. Conan'sthin lips drew back from his teeth in a grinning snarl. Baal-pteor'seyes were distended; in them grew an awful surprize and the glimmer offear. Both men stood motionless as images, except for the expanding oftheir muscles on rigid arms and braced legs, but strength beyond commonconception was warring there--strength that might have uprooted treesand crushed the skulls of bullocks.

  The wind whistled suddenly from between Baal-pteor's parted teeth. Hisface was growing purple. Fear flooded his eyes. His thews seemed readyto burst from his arms and shoulders, yet the muscles of the