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JEWELS OF GWAHLUR
By Robert E. Howard
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird Tales March 1935. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
1 Paths of Intrigue
The cliffs rose sheer from the jungle, towering ramparts of stone thatglinted jade-blue and dull crimson in the rising sun, and curved awayand away to east and west above the waving emerald ocean of fronds andleaves. It looked insurmountable, that giant palisade with its sheercurtains of solid rock in which bits of quartz winked dazzlingly in thesunlight. But the man who was working his tedious way upward was alreadyhalfway to the top.
He came of a race of hillmen, accustomed to scaling forbidding crags,and he was a man of unusual strength and agility. His only garment was apair of short red silk breeks, and his sandals were slung to his back,out of his way, as were his sword and dagger.
The man was powerfully built, supple as a panther. His skin was bronzedby the sun, his square-cut black mane confined by a silver band abouthis temples. His iron muscles, quick eyes and sure feet served him wellhere, for it was a climb to test these qualities to the utmost. Ahundred and fifty feet below him waved the jungle. An equal distanceabove him the rim of the cliffs was etched against the morning sky.
He labored like one driven by the necessity of haste; yet he was forcedto move at a snail's pace, clinging like a fly on a wall. His gropinghands and feet found niches and knobs, precarious holds at best, andsometimes he virtually hung by his finger nails. Yet upward he went,clawing, squirming, fighting for every foot. At times he paused to resthis aching muscles, and, shaking the sweat out of his eyes, twisted hishead to stare searchingly out over the jungle, combing the green expansefor any trace of human life or motion.
Now the summit was not far above him, and he observed, only a few feetabove his head, a break in the sheer stone of the cliff. An instantlater he had reached it--a small cavern, just below the edge of the rim.As his head rose above the lip of its floor, he grunted. He clung there,his elbows hooked over the lip. The cave was so tiny that it was littlemore than a niche cut in the stone, but held an occupant. A shriveledmummy, cross-legged, arms folded on the withered breast upon which theshrunken head was sunk, sat in the little cavern. The limbs were boundin place with rawhide thongs which had become mere rotted wisps. If theform had ever been clothed, the ravages of time had long ago reduced thegarments to dust. But thrust between the crossed arms and the shrunkenbreast there was a roll of parchment, yellowed with age to the color ofold ivory.
The climber stretched forth a long arm and wrenched away this cylinder.Without investigation he thrust it into his girdle and hauled himself upuntil he was standing in the opening of the niche. A spring upward andhe caught the rim of the cliffs and pulled himself up and over almostwith the same motion.
There he halted, panting, and stared downward.
It was like looking into the interior of a vast bowl, rimmed by acircular stone wall. The floor of the bowl was covered with trees anddenser vegetation, though nowhere did the growth duplicate the jungledenseness of the outer forest. The cliffs marched around it without abreak and of uniform height. It was a freak of nature, not to beparalleled, perhaps, in the whole world: a vast natural amphitheater, acircular bit of forested plain, three or four miles in diameter, cut offfrom the rest of the world, and confined within the ring of thosepalisaded cliffs.
But the man on the cliffs did not devote his thoughts to marveling atthe topographical phenomenon. With tense eagerness he searched thetree-tops below him, and exhaled a gusty sigh when he caught the glintof marble domes amidst the twinkling green. It was no myth, then; belowhim lay the fabulous and deserted palace of Alkmeenon.
Conan the Cimmerian, late of the Baracha Isles, of the Black Coast, andof many other climes where life ran wild, had come to the kingdom ofKeshan following the lure of a fabled treasure that outshone the hoardof the Turanian kings.
Keshan was a barbaric kingdom lying in the eastern hinterlands of Kushwhere the broad grasslands merge with the forests that roll up from thesouth. The people were a mixed race, a dusky nobility ruling apopulation that was largely pure negro. The rulers--princes and highpriests--claimed descent from a white race which, in a mythical age, hadruled a kingdom whose capital city was Alkmeenon. Conflicting legendssought to explain the reason for that race's eventual downfall, and theabandonment of the city by the survivors. Equally nebulous were thetales of the Teeth of Gwahlur, the treasure of Alkmeenon. But thesemisty legends had been enough to bring Conan to Keshan, over vastdistances of plain, river-laced jungle, and mountains.
He had found Keshan, which in itself was considered mythical by manynorthern and western nations, and he had heard enough to confirm therumors of the treasure that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But itshiding-place he could not learn, and he was confronted with thenecessity of explaining his presence in Keshan. Unattached strangerswere not welcome there.
But he was not nonplussed. With cool assurance he made his offer to thestately plumed, suspicious grandees of the barbarically magnificentcourt. He was a professional fighting-man. In search of employment (hesaid) he had come to Keshan. For a price he would train the armies ofKeshan and lead them against Punt, their hereditary enemy, whose recentsuccesses in the field had aroused the fury of Keshan's irascible king.
This proposition was not so audacious as it might seem. Conan's fame hadpreceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of theblack corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his nameknown, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms. He did notrefuse tests devised by the dusky lords. Skirmishes along the borderswere incessant, affording the Cimmerian plenty of opportunities todemonstrate his ability at hand-to-hand fighting. His reckless ferocityimpressed the lords of Keshan, already aware of his reputation as aleader of men, and the prospects seemed favorable. All Conan secretlydesired was employment to give him legitimate excuse for remaining inKeshan long enough to locate the hiding-place of the Teeth of Gwahlur.Then there came an interruption. Thutmekri came to Keshan at the head ofan embassy from Zembabwei.
Thutmekri was a Stygian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits hadrecommended him to the twin kings of the great hybrid trading kingdomwhich lay many days' march to the east. He and the Cimmerian knew eachother of old, and without love. Thutmekri likewise had a proposition tomake to the king of Keshan, and it also concerned the conquest ofPunt--which kingdom, incidentally, lying east of Keshan, had recentlyexpelled the Zembabwan traders and burned their fortresses.
His offer outweighed even the prestige of Conan. He pledged himself toinvade Punt from the east with a host of black spearmen, Shemitisharchers, and mercenary swordsmen, and to aid the king of Keshan to annexthe hostile kingdom. The benevolent kings of Zembabwei desired only amonopoly of the trade of Keshan and her tributaries--and, as a pledgeof good faith, some of the Teeth of Gwahlur. These would be put to nobase usage. Thutmekri hastened to explain to the suspicious chieftains;they would be placed in the temple of Zembabwei beside the squat goldidols of Dagon and Derketo, sacred guests in the holy shrine of thekingdom, to seal the covenant between Keshan and Zembabwei. Thisstatement brought a savage grin to Conan's hard lips.
The Cimmerian made no attempt to match wits and intrigue with Thutmekriand his Shemitish partner, Zargheba. He knew that if Thutmekri won hispoint, he would insist on the instant banishment of his rival. There wasbut one thing for Conan to do: find the jewels before the king of Keshanmade up his mind and flee with them. But by this time he was certainth
at they were not hidden in Keshia, the royal city which was a swarm ofthatched huts crowding about a mud wall that enclosed a palace of stoneand mud and bamboo.
While he fumed with nervous impatience, the high priest Gorulgaannounced that before any decision could be reached, the will of thegods must be ascertained concerning the proposed alliance with Zembabweiand the pledge of objects long held holy and inviolate. The oracle ofAlkmeenon must be consulted.
This was an awesome thing, and it caused tongues to wag excitedly inpalace and bee-hive hut. Not for a century had the priests visited thesilent city. The oracle, men said, was the Princess Yelaya, the lastruler of Alkmeenon, who had died in the full bloom of her youth andbeauty, and whose body had miraculously remained unblemished throughoutthe ages. Of old, priests had made their way into the haunted city, andshe had taught them wisdom. The last priest to seek the oracle had beena wicked man, who had sought to steal for himself the curiously cutjewels that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But some doom had