Shadows in Zamboula Page 7

Cimmerian'sthick neck did not give; they felt like masses of woven iron cords underhis desperate fingers. But his own flesh was giving way under the ironfingers of the Cimmerian which ground deeper and deeper into theyielding throat-muscles, crushing them in upon jugular and windpipe.

  The statuesque immobility of the group gave way to sudden, frenziedmotion, as the Kosalan began to wrench and heave, seeking to throwhimself backward. He let go of Conan's throat and grasped his wrists,trying to tear away those inexorable fingers.

  With a sudden lunge Conan bore him backward until the small of his backcrashed against the table. And still farther over its edge Conan benthim, back and back, until his spine was ready to snap.

  Conan's low laugh was merciless as the ring of steel.

  'You fool!' he all but whispered. 'I think you never saw a man from theWest before. Did you deem yourself strong, because you were able totwist the heads off civilized folk, poor weaklings with muscles likerotten string? Hell! Break the neck of a wild Cimmerian bull before youcall yourself strong. I did that, before I was a full-grown man--likethis!'

  And with a savage wrench he twisted Baal-pteor's head around until theghastly face leered over the left shoulder, and the vertebrae snappedlike a rotten branch.

  Conan hurled the flopping corpse to the floor, turned to the sword againand gripped the hilt with both hands, bracing his feet against thefloor. Blood trickled down his broad breast from the wounds Baal-pteor'sfinger nails had torn in the skin of his neck. His black hair was damp,sweat ran down his face, and his chest heaved. For all his vocal scornof Baal-pteor's strength, he had almost met his match in the inhumanKosalan. But without pausing to catch his breath, he exerted all hisstrength in a mighty wrench that tore the sword from the magnet where itclung.

  Another instant and he had pushed open the door from behind which thescream had sounded, and was looking down a long straight corridor, linedwith ivory doors. The other end was masked by a rich velvet curtain, andfrom beyond that curtain came the devilish strains of such music asConan had never heard, not even in nightmares. It made the short hairsbristle on the back of his neck. Mingled with it was the panting,hysterical sobbing of a woman. Grasping his sword firmly, he glided downthe corridor.

  4 Dance, Girl, Dance!

  When Zabibi was jerked head-first through the aperture which opened inthe wall behind the idol, her first, dizzy, disconnected thought wasthat her time had come. She instinctively shut her eyes and waited forthe blow to fall. But instead she felt herself dumped unceremoniouslyonto the smooth marble floor, which bruised her knees and hip. Openingher eyes she stared fearfully around her, just as a muffled impactsounded from beyond the wall. She saw a brown-skinned giant in aloin-cloth standing over her, and, across the chamber into which she hadcome, a man sat on a divan, with his back to a rich velvet curtain, abroad, fleshy man, with fat white hands and snaky eyes. And her fleshcrawled, for this man was Totrasmek, the priest of Hanuman, who foryears had spun his slimy webs of power throughout the city of Zamboula.

  'The barbarian seeks to batter his way through the wall,' said Totrasmeksardonically, 'but the bolt will hold.'

  The girl saw that a heavy golden bolt had been shot across the hiddendoor, which was plainly discernible from this side of the wall. The boltand its sockets would have resisted the charge of an elephant.

  'Go open one of the doors for him, Baal-pteor,' ordered Totrasmek. 'Slayhim in the square chamber at the other end of the corridor.'

  The Kosalan salaamed and departed by the way of a door in the side wallof the chamber. Zabibi rose, staring fearfully at the priest, whose eyesran avidly over her splendid figure. To this she was indifferent. Adancer of Zamboula was accustomed to nakedness. But the cruelty in hiseyes started her limbs to quivering.

  'Again you come to me in my retreat, beautiful one,' he purred withcynical hypocrisy. 'It is an unexpected honor. You seemed to enjoy yourformer visit so little, that I dared not hope for you to repeat it. YetI did all in my power to provide you with an interesting experience.'

  For a Zamboulan dancer to blush would be an impossibility, but a smolderof anger mingled with the fear in Zabibi's dilated eyes.

  'Fat pig! You know I did not come here for love of you.'

  'No,' laughed Totrasmek, 'you came like a fool, creeping through thenight with a stupid barbarian to cut my throat. Why should you seek mylife?'

  'You know why!' she cried, knowing the futility of trying to dissemble.

  'You are thinking of your lover,' he laughed. 'The fact that you arehere seeking my life shows that he quaffed the drug I gave you. Well,did you not ask for it? And did I not send what you asked for, out ofthe love I bear you?'

  'I asked you for a drug that would make him slumber harmlessly for a fewhours,' she said bitterly. 'And you--you sent your servant with a drugthat drove him mad! I was a fool ever to trust you. I might have knownyour protestations of friendship were lies, to disguise your hate andspite.'

  'Why did you wish your lover to sleep?' he retorted. 'So you could stealfrom him the only thing he would never give you--the ring with the jewelmen call the Star of Khorala--the star stolen from the Queen of Ophir,who would pay a roomful of gold for its return. He would not give it toyou willingly, because he knew that it holds a magic which, whenproperly controlled, will enslave the hearts of any of the opposite sex.You wished to steal it from him, fearing that his magicians woulddiscover the key to that magic and he would forget you in his conquestsof the queens of the world. You would sell it back to the queen ofOphir, who understands its power and would use it to enslave men, as shedid before it was stolen.'

  'And why did _you_ want it?' she demanded sulkily.

  'I understand its powers. It would increase the power of my arts.'

  'Well,' she snapped, 'you have it now!'

  '_I_ have the Star of Khorala? Nay, you err.'

  'Why bother to lie?' she retorted bitterly. 'He had it on his fingerwhen he drove me into the streets. He did not have it when I found himagain. Your servant must have been watching the house, and have taken itfrom him, after I escaped him. To the devil with it! I want my loverback sane and whole. You have the ring; you have punished us both. Whydo you not restore his mind to him? Can you?'

  'I could,' he assured her, in evident enjoyment of her distress. He drewa phial from among his robes. 'This contains the juice of the goldenlotus. If your lover drank it he would be sane again. Yes, I will bemerciful. You have both thwarted and flouted me, not once but manytimes; he has constantly opposed my wishes. But I will be merciful. Comeand take the phial from my hand.'

  She stared at Totrasmek, trembling with eagerness to seize it, butfearing it was but some cruel jest. She advanced timidly, with a handextended, and he laughed heartlessly and drew back out of her reach.Even as her lips parted to curse him, some instinct snatched her eyesupward. From the gilded ceiling four jade-hued vessels were falling. Shedodged, but they did not strike her. They crashed to the floor abouther, forming the four corners of a square. And she screamed, andscreamed again. For out of each ruin reared the hooded head of a cobra,and one struck at her bare leg. Her convulsive movement to evade itbrought her within reach of the one on the other side and again she hadto shift like lightning to avoid the flash of its hideous head.

  She was caught in a frightful trap. All four serpents were swaying andstriking at foot, ankle, calf, knee, thigh, hip, whatever portion of hervoluptuous body chanced to be nearest to them, and she could not springover them or pass between them to safety. She could only whirl andspring aside and twist her body to avoid the strokes, and each time shemoved to dodge one snake, the motion brought her within range ofanother, so that she had to keep shifting with the speed of light. Shecould move only a short space in any direction, and the fearful hoodedcrests were menacing her every second. Only a dancer of Zamboula couldhave lived in that grisly square.

  She became, herself, a blur of bewildering motion. The heads missed herby hair's breadths, but they missed, as she pitted her twinkling feet,flick
ering limbs and perfect eye against the blinding speed of the scalydemons her enemy had conjured out of thin air.

  Somewhere a thin whining music struck up, mingling with the hissing ofthe serpents, like an evil night-wind blowing through the empty socketsof a skull. Even in the flying speed of her urgent haste she realizedthat the darting of the serpents was no longer at random. They obeyedthe grisly piping of the eery music. They struck with a horrible rhythm,and perforce her swaying, writhing, spinning body attuned itself totheir rhythm. Her frantic motions melted into the measures of a dancecompared to which the most obscene tarantella of Zamora would haveseemed sane and restrained. Sick with shame and terror Zabibi heard thehateful mirth of her merciless tormentor.

  'The Dance of the Cobras, my lovely