Chapter II
: The Black Lotus
In that dead citadel of crumbling stone.
His eyes were snared by that unholy sheen,
-And curious madness took me by the throat,
As of a rival lover thrust between.
--The Song of Belit
The Tiger ranged the sea, and the black villages shuddered. Tomtoms beat in the night, with a tale that the he-devil of the sea had found a mate, an iron woman whose wrath was as that of a wounded lion. And survivors of butchered Stygian ships named Belit with curses, and a white warrior with fierce blue eyes; so the Stygian princes remembered this woman long and long, and their memory was a bitter tree which bore crimson fruit in the years to come.
But heedless as a vagrant wind, the Tiger cruised the southern coasts, until he anchored at the mouth of a broad sullen river, whose banks were jungle-clouded walls of mystery.
"This is the river Zarkheba, which is Death," said Belit. "Its waters are poisonous. See how dark and murky they run? Only venomous reptiles live in that river. The black people shun it. Once a Stygian galley, fleeing from me, fled up the river and vanished. I anchored in this very spot, and days later, the galley came floating down the dark waters, its decks blood-stained and deserted. Only one woman was on board, and she was mad and died gibbering. The cargo was intact, but the crew had vanished into silence and mystery.
"My lover, I believe there is a city somewhere on that river. I have heard tales of giant towers and walls glimpsed afar off by sailors who dared go part-way up the river. We fear nothing: Conyn, let us go and sack that city."
Conyn agreed. She generally agreed to his plans.His was the mind that directed their raids, her the arm that carried out his ideas. It mattered little to her where they sailed or whom they fought, so long as they sailed and fought. She found the life good.
Battle and raid had thinned their crew; only some eighty spear-men remained, scarcely enough to work the long galley. But Belit would not take the time to make the long cruise southward to the island kingdoms where he recruited his buccaneers. He was afire with eagerness for his latest venture; so the Tiger swung into the river mouth, the oarsmen pulling strongly as he breasted the broad current.
They rounded the mysterious bend that shut out the sight of the sea, and sunset found them forging steadily against the sluggish flow, avoiding sandbars where strange reptiles coiled. Not even a crocodile did they see, nor any fourlegged beast or winged bird coming down to the water's edge to drink. On through the blackness that preceded moonrise they drove, between banks that were solid palisades of darkness, whence came mysterious rustlings and stealthy footfalls, and the gleam of grim eyes. And once an inhuman voice was lifted in awful mockery the cry of an ape, Belit said, adding that the souls of evil women were imprisoned in these man-like animals as punishment for past crimes. But Conyn doubted, for once, in a gold-barred cage in an Hyrkanian city, she had seen an abysmal sad-eyed beast which women told hers was an ape, and there had been about it naught of the demoniac malevolence which vibrated in the shrieking laughter that echoed from the black jungle.
Then the moon rose, a splash of blood, ebony-barred, and the jungle awoke in horrific bedlam to greet it. Roars and howls and yells set the black warriors to trembling, but all this noise, Conyn noted, came from farther back in the jungle, as if the beasts no less than women shunned the black waters of Zarkheba.
Rising above the black denseness of the trees and above the waving fronds, the moon silvered the river, and their wake became a rippling scintillation of phosphorescent bubbles that widened like a shining road of bursting jewels. The oars dipped into the shining water and came up sheathed in frosty silver. The plumes on the warrior's head-piece nodded in the wind, and the gems on sword-hilts and harness sparkled frostily.
The cold light struck icy fire from the jewels in Belit's clustered black locks as he stretched his lithe figure on a leopardskin thrown on the deck. Supported on his elbows, his chin resting on his slim hands, he gazed up into the face of Conyn, who lounged beside him, her black mane stirring in the faint breeze. Belit's eyes were dark jewels burning in the moonlight.
"Mystery and terror are about us, Conyn, and we glide into the realm of horror and death," he said. "Are you afraid?"
A shrug of her mailed shoulders was her only answer.
"I am not afraid either," he said meditatively. "I was never afraid. I have looked into the naked fangs of Death too often. Conyn, do you fear the gods?"
"I would not tread on their shadow," answered the barbarian conservatively. "Some gods are strong to harm, others, to aid; at least so say their priests. Mitra of the Hyborians must be a strong god, because her people have builded their cities over the world. But even the Hyborians fear Set. And Bel, god of thieves, is a good god. When I was a thief in Zamora I learned of her."
"What of your own gods? I have never heard you call on them."
"Their chief is Crom. She dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on her? Little she cares if women live or die. Better to be silent than to call her attention to you; she will send you dooms, not fortune! She is grim and loveless, but at birth she breathes power to strive and slay into a woman's soul. What else shall women ask of the gods?"
"But what of the worlds beyond the river of death?" he persisted.
"There is no hope here or hereafter in the cult of my people," answered Conyn. "In this world women struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity."
Belit shuddered. "Life, bad as it is, is better than such a destiny. What do you believe, Conyn?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I have known many gods. She who denies them is as blind as she who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content."
"But the gods are real," he said, pursuing his own line of thought. "And above all are the gods of the Shemites--Ishtar and Ashtoreth and Derketo and Adonis. Bel, too, is Shemitish, for she was born in ancient Shumir, long, long ago and went forth laughing, with curled locks and impish wise eyes, to steal the gems of the queens of old times."
"There is life beyond death, I know, and I know this, too, Conyn of Cimmeria--" he rose lithely to his knees and caught her in a pantherish embrace--"my love is stronger than any death! I have lain in your arms, panting with the violence of our love; you have held and crushed and conquered me, drawing my soul to your lips with the fierceness of your bruising kisses. My heart is welded to your heart, my soul is part of your soul! Were I still in death and you fighting for life, I would come back from the abyss to aid you--aye, whether my spirit floated with the purple sails on the crystal sea of paradise, or writhed in the molten flames of hell! I am yours, and all the gods and all their eternities shall not sever us!"
A scream rang from the lookout in the bows. Thrusting Belit aside, Conyn bounded up, her sword a long silver glitter in the moonlight, her hair bristling at what she saw. The black warrior dangled above the deck, supported by what seemed a dark pliant tree trunk arching over the rail. Then she realized that it was a gigantic serpent which had writhed its glistening length up the side of the bow and gripped the luckless warrior in its jaws. Its dripping scales shone leprously in the moonlight as it reared its form high above the deck, while the stricken woman screamed and writhed like a mouse in the fangs of a python
. Conyn rushed into the bows, and swinging her great sword, hewed nearly through the giant trunk, which was thicker than a woman's body. Blood drenched the rails as the dying monster swayed far out, still gripping its victim, and sank into the river, coil by coil, lashing the water to bloody foam, in which woman and reptile vanished together.
Thereafter Conyn kept the lookout watch herself, but no other horror came crawling up from the murky depths, and as dawn whitened over the jungle, she sighted the black fangs of towers jutting up among the trees. She called Belit, who slept on the deck, wrapped in her scarlet cloak; and he sprang to her side, eyes blazing. His lips were parted to call orders to his warriors to take up bow and spears; then his lovely eyes widened.
It was but the ghost of a city on which they looked when they cleared a jutting jungle-clad point and swung in toward the incurving shore. Weeds and rank river grass grew between the stones of broken piers and shattered paves that had once been streets and spacious plazas and broad courts. From all sides except that toward the river, the jungle crept in, masking fallen columns and crumbling mounds with poisonous green. Here and there buckling towers reeled drunkenly against the morning sky, and broken pillars jutted up among the decaying walls. In the center space a marble pyramid was spired by a slim column, and on its pinnacle sat or squatted something that Conyn supposed to be an image until her keen eyes detected life in it.
"It is a great bird," said one of the warriors, standing in the bows.
"It is a monster bat," insisted another.
"It is an ape," said Belit.
Just then the creature spread broad wings and flapped off into the jungle.
"A winged ape," said old N'Yaga uneasily. "Better we had cut our throats than come to this place. It is haunted."
Belit mocked at her superstitions and ordered the galley run inshore and tied to the crumbling wharfs. He was the first to spring ashore, closely followed by Conyn, and after them trooped the ebon-skinned pirates, white plumes waving in the morning wind, spears ready, eyes rolling dubiously at the surrounding jungle.
Over all brooded a silence as sinister as that of a sleeping serpent. Belit posed picturesquely among the ruins, the vibrant life in his lithe figure contrasting strangely with the desolation and decay about him. The sun flamed up slowly, sullenly, above the jungle, flooding the towers with a dull gold that left shadows lurking beneath the tottering walls. Belit pointed to a slim round tower that reeled on its rotting base. A broad expanse of cracked, grass-grown slabs led up to it, flanked by fallen columns, and before it stood a massive altar. Belit went swiftly along the ancient floor and stood before it.
"This was the temple of the old ones," he said. "Look--you can see the channels for the blood along the sides of the altar, and the rains of ten thousand years have not washed the dark stains from them. The walls have all fallen away, but this stone block defies time and the elements."
"But who were these old ones?" demanded Conyn.
He spread his slim hands helplessly. "Not even in legendary is this city mentioned. But look at the handholes at either end of the altar! Priests often conceal their treasures beneath their altars. Four of you lay hold and see if you can lift it."
He stepped back to make room for them, glancing up at the tower which loomed drunkenly above them. Three of the strongest blacks had gripped the handholes cut into the stone curiously unsuited to human hands--when Belit sprang back with a sharp cry. They froze in their places, and Conyn, bending to aid them, wheeled with a startled curse.
"A snake in the grass," he said, backing away. "Come and slay it; the rest of you bend your backs to the stone."
Conyn came quickly toward him, another taking her place. As she impatiently scanned the grass for the reptile, the giant blacks braced their feet, grunted and heaved with their huge muscles coiling and straining under their ebon skin. The altar did not come off the ground, but it revolved suddenly on its side. And simultaneously there was a grinding rumble above and the tower came crashing down, covering the four black women with broken masonry.
A cry of horror rose from their comrades. Belit's slim fingers dug into Conyn's arm-muscles. "There was no serpent," he whispered. "It was but a ruse to call you away. I feared; the old ones guarded their treasure well. Let us clear away the stones."
With herculean labor they did so, and lifted out the mangled bodies of the four women. And under them, stained with their blood, the pirates found a crypt carved in the solid stone. The altar, hinged curiously with stone rods and sockets on one side, had served as its lid. And at first glance the crypt seemed brimming with liquid fire, catching the early light with a million blazing facets. Undreamable wealth lay before the eyes of the gaping pirates; diamonds, rubies, bloodstones, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, opals, emeralds, amethysts, unknown gems that shone like the eyes of evil men. The crypt was filled to the brim with bright stones that the morning sun struck into lambent flame.
With a cry Wit dropped to his knees among the bloodstained rubble on the brink and thrust his white arms shoulder-deep into that pool of splendor. He withdrew them, clutching something that brought another cry to his lips--a long string of crimson stones that were like clots of frozen blood strung on a thick gold wire. In their glow the golden sunlight changed to bloody haze.
Belit's eyes were like a man's in a trance. The Shemite soul finds a bright drunkenness in riches and material splendor, and the sight of this treasure might have shaken the soul of a sated emperor of Shushan.
"Take up the jewels, dogs!" his voice was shrill with his emotions.
"Look!" a muscular black arm stabbed toward the Tiger, and Belit wheeled, his crimson lips a-snarl, as if he expected to see a rival corsair sweeping in to despoil his of his plunder. But from the gunwales of the ship a dark shape rose, soaring away over the jungle.
"The devil-ape has been investigating the ship," muttered the blacks uneasily.
"What matter?" cried Belit with a curse, raking back a rebellious lock with an impatient hand. "Make a litter of spears and mantles to bear these jewels--where the devil are you going?"
"To look to the galley," grunted Conyn. "That bat-thing might have knocked a hole in the bottom, for all we know."
She ran swiftly down the cracked wharf and sprang aboard. A moment's swift examination below decks, and she swore heartily, casting a clouded glance in the direction the bat-being had vanished. She returned hastily to Belit, superintending the plundering of the crypt. He had looped the necklace about his neck, and on his naked white chest the red clots glimmered darkly. A huge naked black stood crotch-deep in the jewel-brimming crypt, scooping up great handfuls of splendor to pass them to eager hands above. Strings of frozen iridescence hung between her dusky fingers; drops of red fire dripped from her hands, piled high with starlight and rainbow. It was as if a black titan stood straddle-legged in the bright pits of hell, her lifted hands full of stars.
"That flying devil has staved in the water-casks," said Conyn. "If we hadn't been so dazed by these stones we'd have heard the noise. We were fools not to have left a woman on guard. We can't drink this river water. I'll take twenty women and search for fresh water in the jungle."
He looked at her vaguely, in his eyes the blank blaze of his strange passion, his fingers working at the gems on his breast.
"Very well," he said absently, hardly heeding her. "I'll get the loot aboard."
The jungle closed quickly about them, changing the light from gold to gray. From the arching green branches creepers dangled like pythons. The warriors fell into single file, creeping through the primordial twilights like black phantoms following a white ghost.
Underbrush was not so thick as Conyn had anticipated. The ground was spongy but not slushy. Away from the river, it sloped gradually upward. Deeper and deeper they plunged into the green waving depths, and still there was no sign of water, either running stream or stagnant pool. Conyn halted suddenly, her warriors freezing into basaltic statues. In the tense silence that followed, the Cimme
rian shook her head irritably.
"Go ahead," she grunted to a sub-chief, N'Gora. "March straight on until you can no longer see me; then stop and wait for me. I believe we're being followed. I heard something."
The blacks shuffled their feet uneasily, but did as they were told. As they swung onward, Conyn stepped quickly behind a great tree, glaring back along the way they had come. From that leafy fastness anything might emerge. Nothing occurred; the faint sounds of the marching spearwomen faded in the distance. Conyn suddenly realized that the air was impregnated with an alien and exotic scent. Something gently brushed her temple. She turned quickly. From a cluster of green, curiously leafed stalks, great black blossoms nodded at her. One of these had touched her. They seemed to beckon her, to arch their pliant stems toward her. They spread and rustled, though no wind blew.
She recoiled, recognizing the black lotus, whose juice was death, and whose scent brought dream-haunted slumber. But already she felt a subtle lethargy stealing over her. She sought to lift her sword, to hew down the serpentine stalks, but her arm hung lifeless at her side. She opened her mouth to shout to her warriors, but only a faint rattle issued. The next instant, with appalling suddenness, the jungle waved and dimmed out before her eyes; she did not hear the screams that burst out awfully not far away, as her knees collapsed, letting her pitch limply to the earth. Above her prostrate form the great black blossoms nodded in the windless air.