Classic Audiobook Collection - The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard ~ Full Audiobook [fantasy]

Episode Date: April 20, 2023

The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard audiobook. Genre: fantasy The People of the Black Circle' is one of the original novellas about Conan the Cimmerian, written by American author Robert E. Howard and first published in Weird Tales magazine in three parts over the September, October and November 1934 issues. Howard earned $250 for the publication of this story. It is set in the pseudo-historical Hyborian Age and concerns Conan kidnapping a regal princess of Vendhya (pre-historical India) and foiling a nefarious plot of world domination by the Black Seers of Yimsha. Due to its epic scope and atypical Hindustan flavor, the story is considered an undisputed classic of Conan lore and is often cited by Howard scholars as one of his best tales. It is also one of the few Howard stories where the reader is treated a deeper insight on magic and magicians beyond the stereotypical Hyborian depiction as demon conjurer-illusionist-priests For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:13:09) Chapter 02 (00:33:36) Chapter 03 (00:50:48) Chapter 04 (01:05:35) Chapter 05 (01:32:05) Chapter 06 (02:01:45) Chapter 07 (02:21:59) Chapter 08 (02:41:39) Chapter 09 (03:26:25) Chapter 10 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

the people of the black circle by robert e howard chapter one death strikes a king the king of vinya was dying through the hot stifling night the temple gongs boomed and the conks roared their clamor was a faint echo in the gold dome chamber where bunda chan struggled on the velvet cushioned dais beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin his fingers twisted the gold-worked fabric beneath him he was young no spear had touched him no poison lurked in his wine but his veins stood out like blue cords on his temples and his eyes dilated with the nearness of death trembling slave-girls knelt at the foot of the dais and leaning down to him watching him with passionate interrelated with a nearness of death trembling slave-girls knelt at the foot of the dais and leaning down to him watching him with passionate interruption was his sister, the Devi Yasmina. With her was the Wazam, a noble grown old in the royal court. She threw up her head in a gusty gesture of wrath and despair, as the thunder of the distant drums reached her ears.

The priests and their clamor, she exclaimed. They are no wiser than the leeches who are helpless. Nay, he dies, and none can say why. He is dying now, and I stand here helpless. Who would burn the whole city and spill the blood of thousands to save him? Not a man of a Yadya but would die in his place, if it might be, Devi, answered the Wazam. This poison. I tell you it is not poison, she cried.

Since his birth he has been guarded so closely that the cleverest poisoners of the east could not reach him. Five skulls bleaching on the tower of the kites can testify to attempts which were made and which failed. As you well know, there are ten men and ten women whose sole duty is to taste his food and wine, and fifty armed warriors guard his chamber as they guarded now. No, it is not poison. It is sorcery, black, ghastly, magic. She ceased as the king spoke. His livid lips did not move, and there was no recognition in his glassy eyes.

But his voice rose in an eerie call, indistinct and far away, as if called to her from beyond vast wind-blown gulfs. "'Yosmina! Yasmina! My sister! Where are you? I cannot find you. all is darkness and the roaring of great winds brother cried yasmina catching his limp hand in a convulsive grasp i'm here do you not know me

her voice died at the utter vacancy of his face a low confused moan waned from his mouth the slave girls at the foot of the dais whimpered with fear, and Yasminah beat her breast in anguish. In another part of the city a man stood in a latticed balcony, overlooking a long street in which torches tossed luridly, smokily revealing upturned dark faces and the whites of gleaming eyes. A long-drawn wailing rose from the multitude. The man shrugged his broad shoulders and turned back into the arabesque. chamber. He was a tall man, compactly built and richly clad.

The king is not yet dead, but the dirge is sounded, he said to another man who sat cross-legged on a mat in a corner. This man was clad in a brown camel-hair robe and sandals, and a green turban was on his head. His expression was tranquil, his gaze impersonal. The people know he will never see another dawn, this man answered. The first speaker favored him with a long, searching stare. What I cannot understand, he said, is why I have had to wait so long for your masters to strike. If they have slain the king now, why could they have not slain him months ago? Even the arts you call sorcery are governed by cosmic laws, answered the man in the green

turban. The stars direct these actions as in other affairs. Not even my masters can alter the stars. Not until the heavens were in the proper order could they perform this necromancy. With a long stained fingernail, he mapped the constellations on the marble-tiled floor. The slant of the moon presaged evil for the king of Vinya. The stars are in turmoil, the serpent in the house of the elephant. During such juxtaposition, the invisible guardians are removed from the spirit of Bundachand. A path is opened in the unseen realms, and once a point

of contact was established, mighty powers were put in play along that path. path. Point of contact, inquired the other. Do you mean that lock of Bunda Chan's hair? Yes. All discarded portions of the human body still remain part of it, attached to it by intangible connections. The priests of Asura have a dim inkling of this truth, and so all nail-trimmings, hair, and

other waste products of the persons of the royal family are carefully reduced to ashes, and the ashes hidden. But at the urgent entreaty of the Princess of Kossala, who loved Bundachan vainly, he gave her a lock of his long black hair as a token of remembrance. When my masters decided upon his doom the lock, in its golden jewel-encrusty case, was stolen from under her pillow while she slept, and another suffer substituted, so like the first that she never knew the difference. Then the genuine luck, traveled by camel caravan up the long, long road to Peshkauri,

thence up the Zybar Pass, until it reached the hands of those for whom it was intended. Only a lock of hair, murmured the noble man, by which a soul is drawn from its body and across the ghosts of echoing space, returned the man on the mat. The noble man studied him curiously. I do not know if you are a man or a demon, Kimsa. He said at last. Few of us are what we seem. I, whom the Kasharias know as Karim Shah,

a prince from Iranistan, am no greater a masquerader than most men. They are all traitors in one way or another, and half of them know not whom they serve. There at least I have no doubts, for I serve King Yastigurd of Turan. And I, the black seers of Yimsa, said Kimsa, and my masters are greater than yours, for they have accomplished by their arts what Yazdegerd could not with a hundred thousand swords. Outside, the moan of the tortured thousands shuddered up to the stars, which crusted the sweating

Vinyan night, and the conks bellowed like oxen in pain. In the gardens of the palace the torches glinted on polished helmets and curved swords, and gold-chased corslets. All the noble-born fighting men of Ayyaja were gathered in the great palace or about it, And at each broad-arched gate and door, fifty archers stood on guard with bows in their hands. But death stalked through the royal palace and none could stay his ghostly tread. On the dais under the golden dome, the king cried out again, wracked by awful paroxysms. Again his voice came faintly and far away, and again the Debbie bent to him,

trembling with a fear that was darker than the terror of death. Yasmina! Again that far, weirdly-dreying cry from realms immeasurable, Aid me! I am far from my mortal house. Wizards have drawn my soul through the wind-blown darkness. They seek to snap the silver cord that binds me to my dying. body. They cluster around me. Their hands are tallyened. Their eyes are red like flame burning in

darkness. I save me, my sister. Their fingers sear me like fire. They would slay my body and damn my soul. What is this they bring before me? I, I... At the terror of his hopeless cry, Yasminak screamed uncontrollably and threw herself bodily upon him in the abandon of her anguish. He was torn by a terrible convulsion. Foam flew from his contorted lips, and his writhing fingers left their marks on the girl's shoulders. But the glassy blankness passed from his eyes like smoke blown from a fire, and he looked up

his sister with recognition. Brother! She sobbed. Brother! Swift! He gasped, and his weakening voice was rational. I know now what brings me to the pyre. I have been on a far journey, and I understand.

I have been ensorcelled by the wizards of the Himalians. They drew my soul out of my body and far away, into a stone room. There they strove to break the silver cord of life and thrust my soul into the body of a foul night weird their sorcery summoned up from hell. Ah, I feel their pull upon me now. Your cry and the grip of your fingers brought me back,

but I am going fast. My soul clings to my body, but its hold weakens, quick. Kill me before they can trap my soul forever. I cannot, she wailed, smiting her naked breasts. Swiftly, I command you. There was the old imperious note in his feeling whisper. You have never disobeyed me. Obey my last command.

Send my soul clean to Asura, haste, lest you damn meat, to spend eternity as a filthy gaut of darkness. Strike! I command you, strike!" sobbing wildly, Yasmina plucked a jeweled dagger from her girdle and plunged it to the hilt in his breast. He stiffened and then went limp, a grim smile curving his dead lips. Yasmina hurled herself face down on the rush-covered floor, beating the

the reeds with her clenched hands. Outside the gongs and conks braid and thundered, and the priests gnashed themselves with copper knives. End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of the People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard. This Libra Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2 A Barbarian from the Hills. Chandershan, governor of Peshk Howary, laid down his gold. and pen and carefully scanned that which he had written on parchment that bore his official seal.

He had ruled Peshkawarie so long only because he weighed his every word, spoken or written. Danger breeds caution, and only a wary man lives long in that wild country where the hot Vinyan plains meet the crags of the Himalians. An hour's ride westward or northward, and one can't be a very farryman. across the border and was among the hills, where people lived by the law of the knife. The governor was alone in his chamber, seated at his ornately carved table of inlaid ebony. Through the wide window, open for the coolness, he could see a square of the blue Himalayan night dotted with great white stars. An adjacent parapet was a shadowy line, and

further Cronel's and embracers were barely hinted at. in the dim starlight. The governor's fortress was strong and situated outside the walls of the city it guarded. The breeze that stirred the tapestries on the wall brought faint noises from the streets of Pascarri, occasional snatches of wailing song or the thrum of a sithern. The governor read what he had written, slowly with his opened hand, shading his eyes from the the bronze butterlamp, his lips moving. Absently as he read, he heard the drum of horses' hoofs outside the barbican, the sharp staccato of the guards' challenge. He did not heed intent upon his letter. It was addressed to the Wazam of Vinya at the Royal

Court of Ayadya, and it stated, after the customary salutations, Let it be known to your excellency that I have faithfully carried out your excellent See's instructions. The seven tribesmen are well-guarded in their prison, and I have repeatedly sent word into the hills that their chief come in person to bargain for their release. But he has made no move except to send word that unless they are freed he will burn Pescowary and cover his saddle with my hide, begging your excellency's indulgence. This he is quite capable of attempting, and I have tripled the number of the lance guards.

The man is not a native of Gullistan. I cannot with certainty predict his next move, but since it is the wish of the Devi— He was out of his ivory chair and on his feet facing the arched door all in one instant. He snatched at the curved sword lying in its ornate scabbard on the table, and then checked the movement. It was a woman who had entered unannounced. A woman whose gossamer robes did not concede. the rich garments beneath them, any more than they concealed the suppleness and beauty of her tall, slender figure.

A filmy veil fell below her breasts, supported by a flowing headdress bound about with a triple gold braid and adorned with a golden crescent. Her dark eyes regarded the astonished governor over the veil, and then, with an imperious gesture of her white hand, she uncovered her face. "'Devey!' The governor dropped to his knees before her, surprise and confusion somewhat spoiling the stateliness of his obeisance. With a gesture she motioned him to rise, and he hastened to lead her to the ivory chair,

all the while bowing level with his girdle, but his first words were of reproof. Your Majesty, this was most unwise. The border is unsettled. Rades from the hills are incessant. You came with a large attendance. An ample retinue followed me to Peskhaury, she answered. I lodged my people there and came on to the fort with my maid, Jitara. Chandershan groaned in horror.

Devi, you do not understand the peril. An hour's ride from this spot. The hill swarm with barbarians who make a profession of murder and rapine. Women have been stolen and men stabbed between the fort and the city. Pascowri is not like your southern provinces. But I am here and unharmed, she interrupted with a trace of impatience. I showed my signet ring to the guard of the gate and to the one outside your door, and they admitted me unannounced, not knowing me but supposing me to be a secret courier from a yawya.

Let us not now waste time. You have received no word from the chief of the barbarians? None save threats and curses Debbie. He is wary and suspicious. He deems it a trap, and perhaps he is not to be blamed. The Kashatrias have not always kept their promises to the hill people. He must be brought to terms, broken Yasminah, the knuckles of her clenched hands showing white. I do not understand, the governor shook his head.

When I chanced to capture these seven hillmen, I reported their capture to the wall. As is the custom, and then before I could hang them there came in order to hold them and communicate with their chief. This I did, but the man holds aloof, as I have said. These men are of the tribe of Avgoulos, but he is a foreigner from the west, and is called Conan. I have threatened to hang them tomorrow at dawn if he does not come." "'Good!' exclaimed the Debbie.

"'You have done well. And I will tell you why I have given the orders. My brother—she faltered, choking, and the governor bowed his head with the customary gesture of respect for a departed sovereign. The king of Vinya was destroyed by magic, she said at last. I have devoted my life to the destruction of his murderers. As he died he gave me a clue, and I have followed it.

I have read the book of Skilos and talk with nameless hermit in the caves below July. I learned how and by whom he was destroyed. His enemies were the black seers of Mount Yimshah. Asura, whispered Chandershan, paling. Her eyes knifed him through, Do you fear them? Who does not, Your Majesty? he replied. They are black devils, haunting the uninhabited hills beyond the Zybar. But the sages say that they seldom interfere in the lives of mortal men. Why they slew my brother? I do not know, she answered.

But I have sworn on the altar of Asora to destroy them. And I need the aid of a man beyond the border. A Kashatria army unaided would never reach Himshah. Aye, muttered Chandershan. You speak the truth there. It would be fight every step of the way, with Harry Hillmen hurling down boulders from every height, and rushing us with their long knives in every valley. The Toranians fought their way through the Himalians once, but how many returned to

Kourousan. Few of those who escaped the swords of the Kashatrias, after the king your brother defeated their host on the Jahomga River, ever saw the sectar. Kunderam again." "'And so I must control men across the border,' she said, men who know the way to Mount Yimsa. But the tribes fear the black seers and shun the unholy mountain,' broke in the governor. "'Does the chief Conan fear them?' she asked.

"'Well, as to that,' muttered the governor, "'I doubt if there is anything that devil fears.' So I have been told. Therefore, he is the man I must deal with. He wishes the release of his seven men? Very well. Their ransom shall be the heads of the Black Sears. Her voice thrummed with hate as she uttered the last words, and her hands clenched at her sides.

She looked an image of incarnate passion as she stood there with her head thrown high in her bosom heaving. Again the governor knelt. for part of his wisdom was the knowledge that a woman in such an emotional tempest is as perilous as a blind cobra to any about her. It shall be as you wish, Your Majesty. Then, as she presented a calmer aspect, he rose and ventured to drop a word of warning. I cannot predict what the chief Conan's action will be. The tribes' men are always turbulent, and I have reason to believe that Emiscied.

from the Terranians are stirring them up to radar borders. As your majesty knows, the Terranians have established themselves in Secundarum and other northern cities, though the Hill tribes remain unconquered. King Yestegerd has long looked southward with greedy lust, and perhaps is seeking to gain by treachery what he could not win by force of arms. I have thought that Conan might well be one of his spies. We shall see. She answered. If he loves his followers, he will be at the gates at dawn too poorly. I shall spend the night in the fortress.

I came in disguise to Pesk Howary, and lodged my retinue at an inn instead of the palace. Besides my people, only yourself knows of my presence here. I shall escort you to your quarters, Your Majesty," said the governor. And as they emerged from the doorway he beckoned the warrior on guard there, and the man fell in behind them, Spear held a salute. The maid waited, veiled like her mistress outside the door, and the group traversed a wide, winding corridor, lighted by smoky torches, and reached the quarters reserved for visiting notables, generals and viceroyes, mostly.

None of the royal family had ever honored the fortress before. Chondershahn had a perturbed feeling that the suite was not suitable to such an exalted person as the Devi, and though she sought to make him feel at ease in her presence, he was glad when she dismissed him and he bowed himself out. All the menials of the fort had been summoned to serve his royal guest, though he did not divulge her identity, and he stationed a squad of spearmen before her doors, among them the warrior who had guarded his own chamber. In his preoccupation he forgot to replace the man. The governor had not been long gone from her when Yasmina suddenly remembered something else which she had wished to discuss with him, but had forgotten until that moment.

It concerned the past actions of one Karim Shah, a nautelman from Iranistan, who had dwelt for a while in Pescari before coming on to the court at Ayoyah. A vague suspicion concerning the man had been stirred by a glimpse of him in. Peshkowery that night. She wondered if he had followed her from a Yahya. Being a truly remarkable Devi, she did not summon the governor to her again, but hurried out into the corridor alone and hastened toward his chamber. Chud Dishan entering his chamber, closed the door and went to his table. There he took the letter he had been writing and toured to bits.

Scarcely had he finished when he heard something dropped softly onto the parapet adjacent to the window. He looked up to see a figure loom briefly against the stars, and then a man dropped lightly into the room. The light glinted on a long sheen of steel in his hand. "'Sh,' he warned. Don't make a noise, or I'll send the devil a henchman." The governor checked his motion toward the sword on the table.

He was within reach of the yard-long Zybar knife that glittered in the insurer's fist, and he knew the desperate quickness of a hillman. The invader was a tall man at once strong and supple. He was dressed like a hillman, but his dark features and blazing blue eyes did not match his garb. Chundershahn had never seen a man like him. He was not an Easterner, but some barbarian from the west, but his aspect was as untamed and formidable as any of the hairy tribesmen

who haunt the hills of Gullistan." "'You come like a thief in the night,' commented the governor, recovering some of his composure, although he remembered that there was no guard within call. Still the hillman could not know that. I climbed a bastion, snarled the intruder. A guard thrust his head over the battlement in time for me to wrap it with my knife-hilt. You are Conan? Who else?

You sent word into the hills that you wished for me to come in parley with you. Well, by crumb, I've come. Keep away from that table, or I'll gut you. I merely wish to seek myself, answered the governor, carefully sinking into the ivory chair, which he wheeled away from the table. Conan moved restlessly before him. glancing suspiciously at the door, thumbing the razor edge of his three-foot knife. He did not walk like an Al-Guli, and was bluntly direct where the east is subtle.

"'You have seven of my men,' he said abruptly. "'You refuse the ransom I offered. What the devil do you want?' "'Let us discuss terms,' answered Chand Bershon cautiously. "'Terms? There was a timbre of dangerous anger in his voice. "'What do you mean? Haven't I offered you gold?' Chondershan laughed.

"'Gold? There is more gold in Peshkari than you ever saw.' "'You're a liar,' retorted Conan. "'I've seen the souk of the goldsmith in Kurosun. Well, more than an Avgouli ever saw,' amended Chandershan. And it is but a drop of all the treasure of Vinya. Why should we desire gold? It would be more to our advantage to hang these seven thieves.

Conan ripped out a sulfurous oath, and the long blade quivered in his grip as the muscles rose and ridges on his brown arm. I'll split your head like a ripe melon. A wild blue flame flickered in the Hillman's eyes, but Chundershan shrugged his shoulders, though keeping an eye on the king's steel. You can kill me easily and probably escape over the wall afterward. But that would not save the seven tribesmen. My men would surely hang them,

and these men are headmen among the Afkoulis. I know it, snarled Conan. The tribe is baying like wolves at my heels because I have not procured their release. Tell me in plain words. what you want. Because, by crom, if there's no other way, I'll raise a horde and lead it to the very gates of Peshkhauri. Looking at the man, as he stood squarely, knife in fist and eyes glaring, Chunder-Shan did not doubt that he was capable of it. The governor did not believe any hill

horde could take Peshkharri, but he did not wish a devastated countryside. There is a mission you must perform, he said, choosing his words, with as much care as if they had been razors. There, Conan had sprung back, willing to face the door at the same instant, lips a snarl. His barbarian ears had caught the quick tread of soft slippers outside the door. The next instant the door was thrown open, and a slim, silk-robed farm entered hastily, pulling the door shut, then stopping short at sight of the Hillman. Chandershan sprang up, his heart jumping into his mouth. Devy! he cried involuntarily, losing his head momentarily in his fright.

Devy! It was like an explosive echo from the Hillman's lips. Chandershan saw recognition and intent flame up in the fierce blue eyes. The Governor shouted death. desperately and caught his sword, but the hillman moved with the devastating speed of a hurricane. He sprang, knocked the governor sprawling with a savage blow of his knife-hilt, swept up the astounded Debbie in one brawny arm, and leaped for the window. Chunder-Shahn, struggling frantically to his feet, saw the man poise and incident on the sill in a flutter of silken skirts and white limbs that was his royal captive, and heard his fierce,

exulted snarl. Now dare to hang my men! And then Conan leaped to the parapet and was gone. A wild scream floated back to the governor's ears. Guard, guard! screamed the governor, struggling up and running drunkenly to the door. He tore it open and reeled into the hall. His shouts re-echoed along the corridors,

and warriors came running, gaping to see the governor holding his broken head from which the blood streamed. Turn out the lancers, he roared. There has been an abduction. Even in his frenzy, he had enough sense left to withhold the full truth. He stopped short as he heard a sudden drum of hoofs outside, a frantic scream and a wild yell of barbaric exultation.

Followed by the bewildered guardsman, the governor raced for the stair. In the courtyard of the fort, a force. of Lancers stood by saddle steeds, ready to ride at an instant's notice. Chandershan let his squadron flying after the fugitive, though his head swam so he had to hold with both hands to the saddle. He did not divulge the identity of the victim, but said merely that the noble woman who had borne the royal signet ring had been carried away by the chief of the Afkoulis. The abductor was out of sight in hearing, but they knew the path he would strike.

the road that runs straight to the mouth of the zybar there was no moon peasant huts rose dimly in the starlight behind them fell away the grim bastion of the fort and the towers of peshkhauri ahead of them loomed the black walls of the himalians end of chapter two chapter three of the people of the black circle by robert e howard this libri box recording is in in the public domain. Chapter 3. Kemsa uses magic. In the confusion that reigned in the fortress while the guard was being turned out, no one noticed that the girl who had accompanied the Debbie slipped out the great archdegate and vanished in the darkness.

She ran straight for the city, her garments tucked high. She did not follow the open road, but cut straight through fields and over slopes, avoiding fences and leaping irrigation ditches as surely as if it were broad daylight, and as easily as if she were a trained masculine runner. The hoof-drum of the guardsmen had faded away up the hill before she reached the city wall. She did not go to the great gate, beneath whose arch men leaned on spears and craned their necks into the darkness, discussing the unwanted activity about the fortress. She skirted the wall until she reached a certain point where the spire of the tower was visible above the battlements.

Then she placed her hands to her mouth and voiced a low, weird call that carried strangely. Almost instantly a head appeared at an embrasure, and a rope came wriggling down the wall. She seized it, placed a foot in the loop at the end, and waved her arm. then quickly and smoothly she was drawn up the sheer stone curtain an instant later she scrambled over the merlons and stood up on a flat roof which covered a house that was built against the wall there was an open trap there and a man in a camel-hair robe who silently coiled the rope not showing in any way the strain of hauling a full-grown woman up a forty-foot wall Where is Kyrim Shah? She gasped, panting after her long run. "'Aslip in the house below, you have news?'

"'Conan has stolen the Devi out of the fortress and carried her away into the hills. She blurted out her news in a rush, the word stumbling over one another. Kim Sa showed no emotion but merely nodded his turbaned head. "'Kharim Shah will be glad to hear that,' he said. Wait! The girl threw her supple arms about his neck. She was panting hard, but not only from exertion. Her eyes blazed like black jewels in the starlight.

Her upturned face was close to Kemsaz. But though he submitted to her embrace, he did not return it. Do not tell the Hercanian, she panted. Let us use this knowledge ourselves. The governor has come. gone into the hills with his riders, but he might as well chase a ghost. He has not told anyone that it was the Devi who was kidnapped. None in Pescalery or the fort knows it except us.

But what good does it do us, the man expostulated. My master sent me with Karim Shah to aid him in every way. Aid yourself, she cried fiercely. Shake off your yoke. You mean disobey my master? he gasped, and she felt his whole body turned cold under her arms. I! She shook him in the fury of her emotion.

You, too, are a magician. Why will you be a slave, using your powers only to elevate others? Use your arts for yourself. That is forbidden? He was shaking as if with an ague. I am not one of the black circles. Only by the command of the masters do I dare to use the knowledge they have taught me." "'But you can use it,' she argued passionately.

"'Do as I beg you. Of course Conan has taken the Devi to hold his hostage against the seven tribesmen in the Governor's Prison. Destroy them, so Chunder Shahn cannot use them to buy back the Devey. Then let us go into the mountains and take her from her from the ground. the Afghulis. They cannot stand against your sorcery with their knives. The treasure of the Vinyan kings will be ours as ransom, and then, when we have it in our hands, we can trick them and sell her to the King of Turan. We shall have wealth beyond our maddest dreams.

With it we can buy warriors. We will take Karbul, oust the Terranians from the hills, and send our hosts southward, become king and queen of an empire." Kim-saw, too, was panting, shaking like a leaf in her grasp. His face showed gray in the starlight, beaded with great drops of perspiration. "'I love you!' she cried fiercely, writhing her body against his, almost strangling him in her wild embrace, shaking him in her abandon. I will make a king of you. For love of you I betrayed my mistress.

For love of me, betray your masters. Why fear the black seers? By your love for me you have broken one of their laws already. Break the rest. You are as strong as they. A man of ice could not have withstood the searing heat of her passion and fury. With an inarticulate cry, he crushed. her to him, bending her backward and showering, gasping kisses on her eyes, face and lips.

I'll do it. His voice was thick with laboring emotions. He staggered like a drunken man. The arts they have taught me shall work for me, not for my masters. We shall be rulers of the world, of the world. Come then. Twisting lightly out of his embrace, she seized his hand and led him toward the trap-door. First, we must make sure that the governor does not exchange those seven of gullies for the deffy.

He moved like a man in a daze until they had descended a ladder, and she paused in the chamber below. Karim Shah lay on a couch, motionless, an arm across his face as though to shield his sleeping eyes from the soft light of a brass lamp. She plucked Kim Sa's arm and made a quick gesture across her own throat. Kimsa lifted his hand. Then his expression changed and he drew away. I have eaten his salt, he muttered. Besides, he cannot interfere with us.

He led the girl through a door that opened on a winding stare. After their soft tread had faded into silence, the man on the couch sat up. kareem shah wiped the sweat from his face a knife thrust he did not dread but he feared kimsah as a man fears a poisonous reptile people who plot on roofs should remember to lower their voices he muttered but as kimsa has turned against his masters and as he was my only contact between them i can count on their aid no longer from now on i can count on their aid no longer from now on I play the game in my own way. Rising to his feet he went quickly to a table, drew pin and parchment from his girdle, and scribbled a few succinct lines.

To Koshru Khan, governor of Secundaram, the Samarian Conan has carried the Devi Yasminah to the villages of the Abgulus. It is an opportunity to get the Devi into our hands as the king has so long desired. Send three thousand horsemen at once. I will meet them in the valley of Gorasha with native guides. And he signed it with a name that was not in the least like Karim Shah. Then from a golden cage he drew forth a carrier pigeon, to whose leg he made fast the parchment, rolled into a tiny cylinder and secured with gold wire.

Then he went quickly to a casement and tossed the bird into the night. it wavered on fluttering wings balanced and was gone like a flitting shadow catching up helmet sword and cloak karim shah hurried out of the chamber and down the winding stair the prison quarters of peshkhauri were separated from the rest of the city by a massive wall in which was set a single iron-bound door under an arch over the arch burned a lurid red creset and beside the door squatted a war with spear and shield. The warrior, leaning on his spear and yawning from time to time, started suddenly to his feet. He had not thought he had dozed, but a man was standing before him, a man he had not heard approach. The man wore a camel-hair robe and a green turban.

In the flickering light of the crescent his features were shadowy, but a pair of lamppent eyes shone surprisingly in the lurid glow. Who comes? demanded the warrior, presenting his spear. Who are you? The stranger did not seem perturbed, though the spear-point touched his bosom. His eyes held the warriors with strange intensity.

What are you obliged to do? He asked strangely. To guard the gate. The warrior spoke thickly and mechanically. He stood. rigid as a statue, his eyes slowly glazing. You lie. You are obliged to obey me.

You have looked into my eyes and your soul is no longer your own. Open that door. Stiffly, with the wooden features of an image. The guard wheeled about, drew a great key from his girdle, turned it in the massive lock, and swung open the door. Then he stood at attention, his unseen stare straight ahead of him. A woman glided from the shadows and laid an eager hand on the mesmerist's arm. Bit him fetch us horses, Kimsa, she whispered.

No need of that, answered the Rakshah. Lifting his voice lightly, he spoke to the guardsman. I have no more use for you. Kill yourself. Like a man in a man in a man. trance the warrior thrust the butt of his spear against the base of the wall, and placed the keen hat against his body just below the ribs. Then slowly, stolidly, he leaned against it with all his weight, so that it transfixed his body and came out between his shoulders.

Sliding down the shaft he lay still, the spear jutting above him its full length, like a horrible stalk growing out of his back. The girl stared down at him in morbid fascination until Kemsa took her arm and led her through the gate. Torches lighted a narrow space between the outer wall and a lower inner one, in which were arched doors at regular intervals. A warrior paced this enclosure, and when the gate opened he came sauntering up, so secure in his knowledge of the prison's strength, that he was not suspicious. until Kimsa and the girl emerged from the archway. Then it was too late.

The Rakhshah did not waste time in hypnotism, though his actions savored of magic to the girl. The guard lowered his spear, threateningly, opening his mouth to shout an alarm that would bring spearmen swarming out of the guard-rooms at either end of the alleyway. Kimsa flicked the spear aside with his left hand as a man might flick a straw,

and his right flashed out and back, seeming gently to caress the warrior's neck in passing, and the guard pitched on his face without a sound, his head lolling on a broken neck. Kim Sa did not glance at him, but went straight to one of the arched doors, and placed his open hand against the heavy bronze lock. With a rending shudder, the portal buckled inward. As the girl followed him through, she saw him. She saw that the thick teakwood hung in splinters. The bronze bolts were bent and twisted from their sockets,

and the great hinges broken and disjointed. A thousand-pound battering ram, with forty men to swing it, could have shattered the barrier no more completely. Kemsa was struck with freedom and the exercise of his power, glorying in his might and flinging his strength about as a young giant, it exercises his thews with unnecessary vigor in the exultant pride of his prowess. The broken door led them into a small courtyard, lit by a crescent. Opposite the door was a wide grill of iron bars.

A hairy hand was visible gripping one of these bars, and in the darkness behind them glimmered the whites of eyes. Kimsa stood silent for a space, gazing into the shadows from which those, glimmering eyes gave back his stare with burning intensity then his hands went into his robe and came out again and from his opening fingers a shimmering feather of sparkling dust sifted to the flags instantly a flare of green fire lighted the enclosure in the brief glare the forms of seven men standing motionless behind the bars were limbed in vividly detail. Tall hairy men in ragged hill men's garments. They did not speak, but in their eyes blazed the fear of death, and their hairy fingers gripped the bars. The fire died out, but the glow remained, a quivering ball of lambent green that pulsed and shimmered on

the flags before Kimsha's feet. The wide gaze of the tribesmen was fixed upon it. It wavered, elongated. It turned into a luminous green smoke spiraling upward. It twisted and writhed like a great shadowy serpent, then broadened and billowed out in shining foals and whirls. It grew to a cloud moving silently over the flags, straight toward the grill. The men watched its coming with dilated eyes. The bars quivered with the grip of their desperate fingers. Bearded lips parted, but no sound came forth. The green cloud rolled on the bars and blotted them from sight, like a fog it oozed through the grill and hid the men within.

From the enveloping foals came a strangled gasp, as of a man plunged suddenly under the surface of water. That was all. Kim saw touch the girl's arm as she stood with parted lips and dilated eyes. Mechanically, she turned away with him, looking back over her shoulder. Already the mist was thinning. Close to the bar she saw a pair of sandal feet. The toes turned upward.

She glimpsed the indistinct outlines of seven, still prostrate shapes. And now for a steed swifter than the fastest horse ever bred in a mortal stable, Kimsa was saying. We will be enough gouloussel. on before dawn. End of chapter three. Chapter 4 of the People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard. This Libre Vox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 4. An Encounter in the Pass Yasminah Devi could never clearly remember the details of her abduction. The unexpectedness and violence stunned her. She had only a confused impression. of a whirl of happenings, the terrifying grip of a mighty arm, the blazing eyes of her abductor, and his hot breath burning on her flesh. The leap through the window to the parapet, the mad race across the battlements and roost when the fear of falling froze her. The reckless

descent of a rope bound to a merlon. He went down almost at a run. His captive folded limply over his brawny shoulder. All this was a before. fuddled, tangle in the Debbie's mind. She retained a more vivid memory of him running fleetly into the shadows of the trees, carrying her like a child, and vaulting into the saddle of a fierce volcanic stallion which reared and snorted. Then there was the sensation of flying, and the racing hoofs were striking sparks of fire from the flinty road as the stallion swept up the slopes. As the girl's mind cleared, her first sensations were furious rage and shame.

She was appalled. The rulers of the golden kingdoms south of the Himalians were considered little short of divine, and she was the Debbie of Vinya. Fright was submerged in regal wrath. She cried out furiously and began struggling. She, Yasmina, to be careful. carried on the saddle-bow of a hill-chief, like a common wench of the marketplace. He merely hardened his massive fuse slightly against her writhings,

and for the first time in her life she experienced the coercion of superior physical strength. His arms felt like iron about her slender limbs. He glanced down at her and grinned hugely. His teeth glimmered whitely in the starlight. The reins lay loose on the starlight. stallions flowing main, and every few and fiber of the great beast strained as he hurtled along the boulder-strewn trail, but Conan sat easily, almost carelessly in the saddle, riding like a centaur.

"'You hill-bred dog!' she panted, quivering with the impact of shame, anger, and the realization of helplessness. "'You dare! You dare! Your life shall pay for this. Where are you taking me?" To the villages of Evgolistan," he answered, casting a glance over his shoulder. Behind them beyond the slopes they had traversed, torches were tossing on the walls of the fortress, and he glimpsed a flare of light that meant the great gate had been opened.

And he laughed, a deep-throated boom gusty as the hill wind. The governor has sent his riders after us. He laughed. By crumb, we will lead him a merry chase. What do you think, Debbie? Will they pay seven lives for a Kashatria princess? They will send an army to hang you in your spawn of devils, she promised him with conviction.

He laughed, gustily, and shifted her to a more comfortable position in his arms. But she took this as a fresh outrage and renewed her vain struggle until she saw that her efforts were only amusing him. Besides her light silken garments, floating on the wind, were being outrageously disarranged by her struggles. She concluded that a scornful submission was the better part of dignity and lapsed into a smoldering quiescence. She felt even her anger being submerged by awe as they entered the mouth of the pass, lowering like a black wall mouth in the blacker walls that rose like colossal ramparts to bar their way. It was as if a gigantic knife had cut the zybar out of walls of solid rock. On either side sheer slopes pitched up for thousands of feet,

and the mouth of the pass was dark as ha'ybar. hate. Even Conan could not see with any accuracy, but he knew the road even by night. And knowing that armed men were racing through the starlight after him, he did not check the stallion's speed. The great brute was not yet showing fatigue. He thundered along the road that followed the valley bed, labored up a slope, swept along a low ridge where treacherous shale on either hand lurked for the unwary, and came upon a trail

that followed the lap of the left-hand wall. Not even Conan could spy in that darkness, an ambush set by Zybar tribesmen. As they swept past the black mouth of a gorge that opened into the pass, a javelin swished through the air and thudded home behind the stallion's straining shoulder. The great beast let out his life in a shuddering sob and stumbled, going headlong and mid-stride.

but conan had recognized the flight and stroke of the javelin and he acted with spring steel quickness as the horse fell he leapt clear holding the girl aloft to guard her from striking boulders he lit on his feet like a cat thrust her into a cleft of rock and wheeled toward the outer darkness drawing his knife jasmina confused by the rapidity of events not quite sure just what had happened saw a vague shape rush out of the darkness, bare feet slapping softly on the rock, ragged garments whipping on the wind of his haste. She glimpsed the flicker of steel, heard the lightning crack of stroke, parry and counterstroke, and the crunch of bone as Conan's long knife split the other's skull. Conan sprang back, crouching in the shelter of the rocks. Out in the night, men were moving, and a stentorian voice roared,

What, you dogs, do you flinch? Incurs you, and take them!' Conan started, peered into the darkness and lifted his voice. "'Yar Afzal! Is it you?' There sounded a startled imprecation, and the voice called warily. Conan! Is it you, Conan? Ha, ha, hi, the Samarian laughed.

Come forth, you, old man. War-dog, I've slain one of your men." There was movement among the rocks, a light flared dimly, and then a flame appeared and came bobbing toward him, and as it approached, a fierce bearded countenance grew out of the darkness. The man who carried it held it high, thrust forward, and craned his neck to peer among the boulders it lighted. The other hand gripped touloir. Conan stepped forward, sheathing his knife, and the other roared a greetings.

"'It is Conan! I'm out of your rocks, dogs, it is Conan!' Others pressed into the wavering circle of light, wild, ragged, bearded men with eyes like wolves and long blades in their fists. They did not see Yasmina, for she was hidden by Conan's massive body, but, peeping from her covert. She knew icy fear for the first time that night. These men were more like wolves than human beings. "'What are you hunting in the cybor by night? You are of Saul?' Conan demanded of the burly chief who grinned like a bearded ghoul. "'Who knows what might come up the

past after dark? We wazoolis are nighthawks. But what of you, Conan?' "'I have a prisoner,' answered the Samarian. And moving aside, he disclosed the cowering girl. Reaching a long arm into the crevice, he drew her trembling forth. Her imperious bearing was gone. She stared timidly at the ring of bearded faces that hemmed her in, and was grateful for the strong arm that clasped her possessively. The torch was thrust close to her, and there was a sucking intake of breath about the ring.

She is my captive, Conan warned, glancing pointedly at the feet of the man he had just slain, just visible within the ring of light. I was taking her to Afculistan, but now you have slain my horse, and the Kashatrias are close behind me. Come with us to my village, suggested you're of Zal. We have horses hidden in the gorge. They can never follow us in the darkness. They are close behind you, you say? So close that I hear now the clink of their hoofs on the flint," answered Conan grimly.

Instantly there was movement. The torch was dashed out, and the ragged shapes melted like phantoms into the darkness. Conan swept up the Debbie in his arms, and she did not resist. The rocky ground hurt her slim feet in their soft slippers, and she felt very small and helpless in that brutish, primordial blackness among those colossal nighted crows. Feeling her shiver in the wind that moaned down the defiles, Conan jerked a ragged cloak from its owner's shoulders and wrapped it about her. He also hissed a warning in her ear, ordering her to make no sound. She did not hear the distant clink of shot hoofs on rock that warned the keen-eared

hill men, but she was for too frightened to disobey in any event. She could see nothing but a few faint stars far above, but she knew by the deepening darkness when they entered the gorge mouth. There was a stir about them, the uneasy movement of horses. A few muttered words, and Conan mounted the horse of the man he had killed, lifting the girl up in front of him. Like phantoms except for the click of their hoofs, the band swept the way up the shadowy gorge. Behind them, on the trail they lay. left the dead horse and the dead man, which were found less than half an hour later by the riders of the fortress, who recognized the man as a wazuli, and drew their own conclusions

accordingly. Yasminah snuggled warmly in her captor's arms, grew drowsy in spite of herself. The motion of the horse, though it was uneven, uphill and down, yet possessed a certain rhythm which combined with weariness and emotional exhaustion to force sleep upon her. She had lost all sense of time and direction. They moved in soft, thick darkness, in which she sometimes glimpsed vaguely gigantic walls sweeping up like black ramparts, or great crags shouldering the stars. At times she sensed echoing depths beneath them, or felt the wind of dizzy heights blowing

cold about her. Gradually, these things faded into a dreamy unwakefulness, in which the clink of hoofs and the creak of saddles were like the irrelevant sounds in a dream. She was vaguely aware when the motion ceased, and she was lifted down and carried a few steps. Then she was laid down on something soft and rustling, and something, a folded coat perhaps, was thrust under her head, and the cloak in which she was. was wrapped, was carefully tucked about her. She heard Yarr Afsa laugh. "'Hoha, a rare prize, Conan.

Fit mate for a chief of the Afkullis.' "'Not for me,' came Conan's answering rumble. "'This wench will buy the lives of my seven headsmen blast their souls.' That was the last she heard as she sank into dreamless slumber. She slept while armed men rode through the dark hills. and the fate of kingdoms hung in the balance. Through the shadowy gorges and defiles that night there rang the hoofs of galloping horses, and the starlight glimmered on helmets and curved blades,

until the ghoulish shapes that haunt the crags stared into the darkness from ravine and boulder and wondered what things were afoot. A band of these sat gaunt horses in the black pit-mouth of a gorge, as the hurrying hoofs swept past. Their leader, a well-built man in a helmet and gilt-braided cloak, held up his hand warningly, until the riders had sped on. Then he laughed softly. They must have lost the trail,

or else they have found that Conan has already reached the Avgouli villages. It will take many riders to smoke out that hive. There will be squadrons right. riding up the zybor by dawn. If there is fighting in the hills that will be looting," martyed a voice behind him, in the dialect of the Iraq's eye. There will be looting, answer the man with the helmet. But first, it is our business to reach the valley of Gorosha, and await the riders that will

be galloping southward from Secundaram before daylight. He lifted his reins and rode out of the defile. men falling in behind him, thirty ragged phantoms in the starlight. End of Chapter 4. Chapter 5 of the People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard. This Libre Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 5. The Black Stallion

The sun was well up when Yasmina awoke. She did not start and stare blankly, wondering where she was. She awoke with full knowledge of all that had occurred. Her supple limbs were stiff from her long ride, and her firm flesh seemed to feel the contact of the muscular arm that had borne her so far. She was lying on a sheepskin, covering a pellet of leaves, on a hard-beaten dirt floor. A folded sheepskin coat was under her head, and she was wrapped in a ragged cloak. She was in a large room.

the walls of which were crudely but strongly built of uncut rocks plastered with sun-baked mud. Heavy beam supported a roof of the same kind, in which showed a trap-door up to which led a ladder. There were no windows in the thick walls, only loopholes. There was one door, a sturdy bronze affair that must have been looted from some Vinyon border tower. opposite it was a wide opening in the wall with no door, but several strong wooden bars in place. Beyond them, Yasminah saw a magnificent black stallion munching a pile of dried grass. The building was fort, dwelling place, and stable in one. At the other end of the room a girl in the vest and baggy trousers of a hill woman

squatted beside a small fire, cooking strips of meat on an iron grid laid over blocks of stone. There was a sooty cleft in the wall a few feet from the floor, and some of the smoke found its way out there. The rest floated in blue wisps about the room. The hill girl glanced at Yasmina over her shoulder, displaying a bold, handsome face, and then continued her cooking. Voices boomed outside. Then the door was kicked open and Conan strode in. He looked more enormous than ever,

with the morning sunlight behind him, and Yasminah noted some details that had escaped her the night before. His garments were clean and not ragged. The broad Bakhariat girdle that supported his knife in its ornamented scabbard would have matched the road of a prince, and there was a glint of fine Terranian male under his shirt.

"'Your captive is awake, Conan,' said the Wazuli girl, and he grunted, strode up to the fire and swept the strips of mutton off into a stone dish. The squatting girl laughed up at him with some spicy jest, and he grinned wolfishly, and, hooking a toe under her haunches, tumbled her sprawling onto the floor. She seemed to derive considerable amusement from this bit of rough horseplay, but Conan paid no more heed to her. Producing a great hunk of bread from somewhere, with a copper jug of wine he carried the lot to Yasminah, who had risen from her pellet, and was regarding him doubtfully. "'Ruff fare for a Debbie girl, but our best,' he grunted.

"'It will fill your belly at least.' he set the platter on the floor and she was suddenly aware of a ravenous hunger making no comment she seated herself cross-legged on the floor and taking the dish in her lap she began to eat using her fingers which were all she had in the way of table utensils after all adaptability is one of the tests of true aristocracy conan stood looking down at her his thumbs hooked in his girdle He never sat cross-legged after the eastern fashion. Where am I? she asked abruptly. In the hut of Yarr-Avzal, the chief of the Kourum Wazuli's, he answered. Ofgulistan lays a good many miles further on to the west. We'll hide here a while.

The Kasatrias are beating up the hills for you. Several of their squads have been cut up by the tribes already. What are you going to do? she asked keep you until chundershahn is willing to trade back my seven cow thieves he grunted women of the wazuli are crushing ink out of skokie leaves and after a while you can write a letter to the governor a touch of her old imperious wrath shook her as she thought how maddeningly her plans had gone awry leaving her captive of the very man she had plotted to get into her power she flung down the dish with the remains of her meal and sprang to her feet tense with anger i will not write a letter if you do not take me back they will hang your seven men and a thousand more besides the wazuli girl laughed mockingly conan scowled and then the door opened and yore of zal came swaggering in the wazuli chief was as tall as conan and a greater girth, but he looked fat and slow beside the hard compactness of the Samarian. He plucked his

red-stained beard and stared, meaningly at the Wazuli girl, and that wench rose and scurried out without delay. Then your offsal turned to his guest. The damnedable people murmur, Conan, quoth he. They wish me to murder you and take the girl to hold for ransom. They say that anyone can tell by her garments that she is a noble lady. They say, why should the Avgouli dogs profit by her, when it is the people who take the risk of guarding her? "'Lend me your horse,' said Conan. I'll take her and go. "'Cheh, boomed your offsal. Do you think I can't handle my own people? I'll have them

dancing in their shirts if they cross me. They don't love you or any other outlander, But you saved my life once, and I will not forget it. Come out, though, Conan. A scout has returned. Conan hitched at his girdle and followed the chief outside. They closed the door after them, and Yasmina peeped through a loophole. She looked out on a level space before the hut. At the farther end of that space there was a cluster of mud and stone huts, and she saw naked children playing among the boulders,

and the slim erect women of the hills going about their tasks. Directly before the chief's hut, a circle of hairy, ragged men squatted facing the door. Conan and Yar Afzal stood a few paces before the door, and between them and the ring of warriors another man sat cross-legged. This one was addressing his chief in the harsh accents of the Wazuli, which Yasmina could scarcely understand, though as part of her royal education she had been taught the languages of Iranistan and the kindred tongues of Gullistan. I talked with a dogozai who saw the riders last night, said the scout.

He was lurking near when they came to the spot where we ambushed the Lord Conan. He overheard their speech. Chandershan was with them. They found the dead horse and wardson. One of the men recognized it as Conan's. Then they found the man Conan slew and knew him for a Wazuli. It seemed to them that Conan had been slain and the girl taken by the Wazuli, so they turned aside from their purpose of following to Avogulistan.

But they did not know from which village the dead man was come, and we left no trail and Kishatria could follow. So they rode to the next to the next. nearest Wazuli village, which was the village of Jugra, and burnt it and slew many of the people. But the men of Kojor came upon them in darkness and slew some of them, and wounded the governor. So the survivors retired down the Xybar in the darkness before dawn, but they returned with reinforcements before sunrise, and there has been skirmishing and fighting in the hills all morning. It is said that a great army.

me is being raised to sweep the hills about the zybar. The tribes are wetting their knives and laying ambushes in every pass from here to Grosha Valley. Moreover, Karim Shah has returned to the hills. A grunt went around the circle and Yasmina leaned closer to the loophole at the name she had begun to mistrust. Where went he? demanded Yarafsal. The dog-o-zai did not know. With him were thirty Iroxai of the lower villages.

They rode into the hills and disappeared. These iroxi are jackals that follow a lion for crumbs, growled your Afzal. They have been lapping up the coins Karim Shah scatters among the border tribes to buy men like horses. I like him not, for all he is our kinsmen from Iranistan. He's not even that, said Conan. I know him of old. He's an Hyrcanian, a spy of Yesterguards. If I catch him, I'll hang his hide to a tamarisk. But the Kashatras clambered the men in the semicircle. Are we to squat on our hodges until they smoke us out? They will learn at last in which Wazuli village the winches held.

We are not loved by the Zibati. They will help the kishatras hunt us out. Let them come, grunted Yarr Afsal. We can hold the defiles against a host. One of the men leaped up and shook his fist at Conan. Are we to take all the risks while he reaps the rewards? He howled. Are we to fight his battles for him?

With a stride, Conan reached him and bent slightly to stare full into his hairy face. The Samarian had not drawn his long knife, but his left hand gripped the scabbard, jutting the hilt suggestively forward. I ask no man to fight my battles, he said softly. Draw your blade if you dare, you yapping dog. Voisouli stared back, snarling like a cat. dare to touch me and here are fifty men to rend you apart he screeched what roared yar afsal his face purpling with wrath his whiskers bristled his belly swelled with his rage are you chief of kurum do the wazuli take orders from yarr afsal or from a low-bred cur the man cringed

the man cringed before his invincible chief and yorafsal striding up to him seized him by the throat and choked him until his face was turning black then he hurled the man savagely against the ground and stood over him with his toulroar in his hand is there any one who questions my authority he roared and his warriors looked down sullenly as his bellicose glare swept their semicircle. Yarr Afzal grunted scornfully and sheathed his weapon with a gesture that was the apex of insult. Then he kicked the fallen agitator with a concentrated vindictiveness that brought howls from his victim. Get down the valley to the watchers on the heights and bring word if they have seen anything, commanded Yarr Afzal, and the man went, shaking with fear. and grinding his teeth with fury.

Yarafsal then seated himself ponderously on a stone, growling in his beard. Conan stood near him, legs braced apart, thumbs hooked in his girdle, narrowly watching the assembled warriors. They stared at him sullenly, not daring to brave Yarovsal's fury, but hating the foreigner as only a hillman can hate. Now listen to me, you sons of nameless dogs, while I tell you with the Lord Conan and I have planned to fool the Kashadrias. The boom of Yar-Ufsal's bull-like voice followed the discomfited warrior as he shrunk away from the assembly. The man passed by the cluster of huts, where women who had seen his defeat laughed at him and called stinging comments,

and hastened on along the trail that wound among spurs and rocks toward the valley head. Just as he rounded the first turn that took him out of sight of the village, he stopped short, gaping stupidly. He had not believed it possible for a stranger to enter the valley of Kurum without being detected by the hawk-eyed watchers along the heights. Yet a man sat cross-legged on a low ledge beside the pass. a man in a camel-hair robe and a green turban the wazuli's mouth gaped for a yell and his hand leaped to his knife-hilt but at that instant his eyes met those of the stranger and the cry died in his throat his fingers went limp he stood like a statue his own eyes glazed and vacant For minutes the scene held motionless.

Then the man on the ledge drew a cryptic symbol in the dust of the rock with his forefinger. The Wazuli did not see him place anything within the compass of that emblem, but presently something gleamed there, a round, shiny black ball that looked like polished jade. The man in the green turban took this up and tossed it to the Wazuli, who mechanically caught it. carry this to yar of saul he said and the wazuli turned like an automaton and went back along the path holding the black jade ball in his outstretched hand He did not even turn his head to the renewed jeers of the women as he passed the huts. He did not seem to hear. The man on the ledge gazed after him with a cryptic smile.

A girl's head rose above the rim of the ledge, and she looked at him with admiration and a touch of fear that had not been present the night before. Why did you do that? she asked. He ran his fingers through her dark locks, caressingly. Are you still dizzy from your flight on the horse of air that you doubt my wisdom? He laughed. As long as Yarr Afsal lives, Conan will bide safe among the Wazuli fighting men. Their knives are sharp, and there are many of them. What I plot will be safer, even for me, than to seek to slay him and take her from among them.

It takes no wizard to predict what the Wazuli will do, and what can be safer. Conan will do when my victim hands the globe of Yazud to the chief of Kurum. Back before the hut, Yor Avzal halted in the midst of some tirade, surprised and displeased, to see the man he had sent up the valley, pushing his way through the throng. I bade you go to the watchers, the chief bellowed. You have not had time to come from them. The other did not reply. He stood, woodenly, staring vacantly into the chief's face.

His palm outstretched holding the jade ball. Conan, looking over Yar-Ofsal's shoulder, murmured something and reached to touch the chief's arm. But as he did so, Yor-of-Sal, in a paroxysm of anger, struck the man with his clenched fist and felled him like an ox. As he fell, the jade sphere rolled to Y'ar-of-Sal's foot. and the chief, seeming to see it for the first time, bent and picked it up. The men, staring perplexedly at their senseless comrade, saw their chief bend, but they did not see what he picked up from the ground.

Yarr Uffsal straightened, glanced at the jade, and made a motion to thrust it into his girdle. Carry that fool to his hut, he growled. He has the look of a lotus eater. He returned me a blank stare. I... In his right hand, moving toward his girdle, he had suddenly felt movement where movement should not be. His voice died away as he stood and glared at nothing, and inside his clenched right hand he felt the quivering of change, of motion, of life.

He no longer held a smooth, shining sphere in his fingers, and he dared not look. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not open his hand. His astonished warriors saw Yar Afzal's eyes distend, the color ebb from his face. Then, suddenly a bellow of agony burst from his bearded lips. He swayed and fell, as if struck by lightning, his right arm tossed out in front of him. Face down he lay, and from between his old. opening fingers crawled a spider, a hideous, black, hairy-legged monster whose body shone like black jade.

The men yelled and gave back suddenly, and the creature scuttled into a crevice of the rocks and disappeared. The warriors started up, glaring wildly, and a voice rose above their clamor. A far-carrying voice of command, which came from none-hundred. knew where. Afterward, each man there, who still lived, denied that he had shouted, but all there heard it. Yarr of Saul is dead. Kill the outlander. That shout focused their whirling minds as one. Doubt, bewilderment, and fear vanished in the uproaring surge of the bloodlust.

A furious yell rent the skies, as the tribesmen responded instantly. to the suggestion. They came headlong across the open space, cloaks flapping, eyes blazing, knives lifted. Conan's action was as quick as theirs. As the voice shouted, he sprang for the hut door, but they were closer to him than he was to the door, and with one foot on the sill he had to wheel and parry the swipe of a yard-long blade. He split the man's skull, ducked another swinging knife and gutting at the wielder, felled a man with his left fist and stabbed another in the belly, and heaved back mightily against the closed door with his shoulders.

Hacking blades were nicking chips out of the jams about his ears, but the door flew open under the impact of his shoulders, and he went stumbling backward into the room. A bearded tribesman thrusting with all his fury as Conan sprang back, overreached and pitched head first through the doorway. stopped, grasped the slack of his garments, and hauled him clear, and slammed the door in the faces of the men who were struggling into it. Bones snapped under the impact. And the next instant Conan slammed the bolts into place and whirled with desperate haste to

meet the man who sprang from the floor and tore into action like a madman. Yasmina, cowering in a corner, staring in horror as the two men fought back and forth the room, almost trampling her at times. The flash and clangor of their blades filled the room, and outside the mob clambered like a wolf pack, hacking deafeningly at the bronze door with their long knives and dashing huge rocks against it. Somebody fetched a tree trunk, and the door began to stagger under the thunderous assault. Shea clasped her ears, staring wildly.

Violence and fury within. Cataclysmic madness without. The stall in his stall knayed and reared, thundering with his heels against the walls. He wheeled and launched his hoofs through the bars just as the tribesmen, backing away from Conan's murderous swipes, stumbled against them. His spine cracked in three places like a rotten branch. and he was hurled headlong against the Samarian, bearing him backward, so that they both crashed to the beaten floor.

Yasminah cried out and ran forward. To her dazed sight it seemed that both were slain. She reached them just as Conan threw aside the corpse and rose. She caught his arm trembling from head to foot. Oh, you live! I thought—I thought you were dead. He glanced down at her quickly. into the pale upturned face and the wide staring dark eyes why are you trembling he demanded why should you care if i live or die a vestige of her poise returned to her and she drew away making a rather pitiful attempt at playing the debby you were preferable to those wolves howling without she answered gesturing toward the door the stone sill of which was beginning to splinter away

that won't hold long he muttered then turned and went swiftly to the stall of the stallion jasminah clenched her hands and caught her breath as she saw him tear aside these splintered bars and go into the stall with the maddened beast The stallion reared above him, neighing terribly, hoofs lifted, eyes and teeth flashing and ears laid back, but Conan leaped and caught his mane with a display of sheer strength that seemed impossible, and dragged the beast down on his forelegs. The steed snorted and quivered, but stood still while the man bridled him, and clapped on the gold-worked saddle with the wide silver stirrups. Wheeling the beast around in the stall, Conan called quickly to Yasminah, and the girl came, sidling nervously past the stallion's heels.

Conan was working at the stone wall, talking swiftly as he worked. A secret door in the wall here that not even the wazuli know about. Yarr Afzal showed it to me once when he was drunk. It opens out into the mouth of the ravine behind the hut. Ha! Ha! As he tugged at a projection that seemed casual, a whole section of the wall slid back on oiled iron runners. Looking through, the girls saw a narrow defile opening in a sheer stone cliff within a few feet of the hut's back wall.

Then Conan sprang into the saddle and hauled her up before him. Behind them the great door groaned like a living thing and crashed in, and a yell, rang to the roof as the entrance was instantly flooded with hairy faces and knives in hairy fists. And then the great stallion went through the wall like a javelin from a catapult, and thundered into the defile running low, foam-flying from the bit-rings. That move came as an absolute surprise to the Wazuli. It was a surprise, too, to those stealing down the ravine. It happened so quickly, the hurricane-like charge of the great horse, that a man in a green turban was unable to get out

of the way. He went down under the frantic hoofs, and a girl screamed. Conan got one glimpse of her as they thundered by, a slim, dark girl in silk trousers and a jeweled breastband, flattening herself against the ravine wall. Then the black horse and his riders were gone up the gorge, like the spume blown before a storm. and the men who came tumbling through the wall into the defile after them met that which changed their yells of bloodlust to shrill screams of fear and death. End of Chapter 5 Chapter 6 of the People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard. This Libre-Box recording is in the public domain.

Chapter 6 The Mountain of the Black Sears Where now? Yasmina was trying to sit erect on the rocking saddle-bow, clutching her captor. She was conscious of a recognition of shame that she could not find unpleasant the feel of his muscular flesh under her fingers. To have Gullistan, he answered. It's a perilous road, but the stallion will carry us easily. Unless we fall in with some of your friends or my tribal enemies. Now that Yor of Zal is dead, those damned Wazuli will be on our heels.

I'm surprised we haven't sighted them behind us already. Who is that man you rode down? she asked. I don't know. I never saw him before. He's no ghuli, that's certain. What the devil he was doing there is more than I can say. There was a girl with him, too. Yes, her gaze was shadowed. I cannot understand that.

That girl was my maid, Gattara. Do you suppose she was coming to aid me? That the man was a friend? If so, the Wazoolis have captured them both. Well, he answered, there's nothing we can do. If we go back, they'll skin us both. I can't understand how a girl like that could get this far into the mountains with only one man, and he a robed scholar for that's what he looked like there's something infernally queer in all this that fellow yar afsal beat and sent away he moved like a man walking in his sleep

i've seen the priests of zamora performed their abominable rituals in their forbidden temples and their victims had a stare like that man the priests looked into their eyes and muttered incantation the priests looked into their eyes and muttered incantations and then the people became the walking dead men with glassy eyes doing as they were ordered and then i saw what the fellow had in his hand which yorovsal picked up it was like a big black jade bead such as the temple girls of yezad where when they dance before the black stone spider which is their god yarr aphsal held it in his hand and he didn't pick up anything else yet when he fell dead a spider like the god at yezod only smaller ran out of his fingers and then when the wazuli stood uncertain there a voice cried out for them to kill me and i know that voice didn't come from any of the warriors nor from the women who watched by the huts it seemed to come from above Yasminah did not reply. She glanced at the stark outlines of the mountains all about them and shuddered. Her soul shrank from their gaunt brutality.

This was a grim, naked land where anything might happen. Age-old traditions invested it with shuddery horror for anyone born in the hot luxuriant southern plains. The sun was high, beating down with fierce heels. heat, yet the wind that blew in fitful gusts seemed to sweep off slopes of ice. Once she heard a strange rushing above them that was not the sweep of the wind, and from the way Conan looked up, she knew it was not a common sound to him either. She thought that a strip of the cold blue sky was momentarily blurred, as if some all but invisible object had swept between it and herself.

but she could not be sure. Neither made any comment, but Conan loosened his knife in his scabbard. They were following a faintly marked path, dipping down into ravines so deep the sun never struck bottom, laboring up steep slopes where loose shale threatened to slide from beneath their feet, and following knife-edge ridges with blue-hased echoing depths on either hand. The sun had passed its zenith when they crossed a narrow trail winding among the crags. Conan reigned the horse aside and followed it southward, going almost at right angles to their former course. A galsy village is at one end of this trail, he explained. Their women follow it to a well for water. You need new garments.

Glancing down at her filmy attire, Yasminah agreed with him. her cloth of gold slippers were in tatters her robes and silken undergarments torn to shreds that scarcely held together decently garments meant for the streets of pesh howry were scarcely appropriate for the crags of the himalienes coming to a crook in the trail conan dismounted helped yasmina down and waited presently he nodded though she heard nothing a woman coming along the trail he remarked in sudden panic she clutched his arm you will not-not kill her i don't kill women ordinarily he grunted though some of the hill women are she-wolves no he grinned as at a huge jest by crumb i'll pay for her clothes how is that he displayed a large handful of gold coins and replaced all but the largest she nodded much relieved it was perhaps natural for men to slay and die her flesh crawled at the thought of watching the butchery of a woman presently a woman appeared around the crook of the trail a tall slim galsy girl straight as a young sapling bearing a great empty gourd she stopped short and the gourd fell from her hands when she saw them she wavered as though to run then realized that conan was too close to her to allow her to escape and so stood still staring at them with a mixed expression of fear and curiosity conan displayed the gold coin if you will give this woman your garments he said i will give you this money the response was instant the girl smiled

smiled broadly with surprise and delight, and, with the disdain of a hill-woman for prudish conventions, promptly yanked off her sleeveless embroidered vest, slipped down her wide trousers and stepped out of them, twitched off her wide-sleeved shirt, and kicked off her sandals. Bundling them all in a bunch, she proffered them to Conan, who handed them to the astonished Devi. Get behind that rock and put these on, he directed. further proving himself no native hillman. Fold your robes up into a bundle and bring them to me when you come out.

The money! Clammered the hill-girl, stretching out her hands eagerly. The gold you promised me! Conan flipped the coin to her. She caught it, bit, then thrust it into her hair, bent and caught up the gourd and went on down the path, as devoid of self-consciousness as of garments. Conan waited with some impatience,

while the Debbie, for the first time in her pampered life, dressed herself. When she stepped from behind the rock, he swore in surprise, and she felt a curious rush of emotions at the unrestrained admiration burning in his fierce blue eyes. She felt shame, embarrassment, yet a stimulation of vanity she had never before experienced, and a tingling when meeting the impact of his eyes. He laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and turned her about, staring avidly at her from all ankles. "'By Crom!' said he.

"'In those smoky mystic robes you were aloof and cold and far off as a star. Now you are a woman of warm flesh and blood. You went behind that rock as the Debbie of a vignyna. You came out as a hill-girl, though a thousand times more beautiful. than in any wench of Zybar. You were a goddess. Now you are real. He spanked her resoundingly, and she,

recognizing this as merely another expression of admiration, did not feel outraged. It was indeed as if the changing of her garments had wrought a change in her personality. The feelings and sensations she had suppressed rose to dominate in her now, as if the queenly robes she had cast off had been material shackles and inhibitions. But Conan, in his renewed admiration, did not forget that peril lurked all about them.

The further they drew away from the region of the Zybar, the less likely he was to encounter any Kashatria troops. On the other hand, he had been listening all throughout their flight for sounds that would Tell him the vengeful wazuli's of Krum were on his heels. Swinging the Devi up he followed her into the saddle and again reigned the stallion westward. The bundle of garments she had given him he hurled over a cliff to fall into the depths of a thousand-foot gorge. Why did you do that? she asked.

Why did you not give them to the girl? The riders from Peshkhowery are combing these hills. He said. They'll be ambushed and harried at every turn, and by way of reprisal they'll destroy every village they can take. They may turn westward any time. If they found a girl wearing your garments, they torture her into talking, and she might put them on my trail.

What will she do? asked Yasmina. Go back to her village and tell her people that a stranger attacked her, he answered. She'll have them on our track, all right. she had to go on and get the water first. If she dared go back without it, they'd whip the skin off her. That gives us a long start. They'll never catch us. By nightfall, we'll cross the Abgouli border." "'There are no paths or signs of human habitation in these parts,' she commented. "'Even for the Himalians this region seems singularly deserted. We have not seen a trail

since we left the one where we met the Galsey Woman.' For answer, he pointed to the northwest, where she glimpsed a peak in a notch of the crags. Yimshah, grunted Conan. The tribes build their villages as far from the mountain as they can. She was instantly rigid with attention. Yemshaw, she whispered, the mountain of the black seers? So they say, he answered, This is as near as I ever approached it.

I have swung north to avoid any Kishatria troops that might be prowling through the hills. The regular trail from Kurohm to Afghanistan lies farther south. This is an ancient one and seldom used. She was staring intently at the distant peak. Her nails bit into her pink palms. How long would it take to reach Yimshah from this point? all the rest of the day and all night he answered and grinned do you want to go there by crom it's no place for an ordinary human from what the hill people say why do they not gather and destroy the devils that inhabit it she demanded wipe out wizards with swords anyway they never interfere with people unless the people interfere with them i never saw one of them though i've talked with men who swore they had

They say they've glimpsed people from the tower among the crags at sunset or sunrise, tall, silent men in black robes. Would you be afraid to attack them? I? The idea seemed a new one to him. Why, if they imposed upon me, it would be my life or theirs. But I have nothing to do with them. I came to these mountains to raise a following of human beings, not to war with wizards. Yasminah did not at once reply.

She stared at the peak as at a human enemy, feeling all her anger and hatred stir in her bosom anew, and another feeling began to take dim shape. She had plotted to hurl against the masters of Yimshaw, the man in whose arms she was now carried, perhaps there was another way, besides the method she had planned to accomplish her purpose. She could not mistake the look that was beginning to dawn in this wild man's eyes as they rested on her.

Kingdoms have fallen when a woman's slim white hands pulled the strings of destiny. Suddenly she stiffened, pointing, look! Just visible on the distant peak, there hung a cloud of peculiar aspect. It was a frosty crimson in color, veined with sparkling gold. This cloud was in motion. It rotated, and as it whirled it contracted. It dwindled to a spinning taper that flashed in the sun, and, suddenly, it detached itself from the snow-tipped peak,

floated out over the void like a gay-hued feather, and became invisible against the cerulean sky. "'What could that have been?' asked the girl uneasily. As a shoulder of rock shut the distant mountain from view, The phenomena had been disturbing even in its beauty. The hillmen call it Yim Shah's carpet, whatever that means, answered Conan. I've seen five hundred of them running as if the devil were at their heels to hide themselves in caves and crags because they saw that crimson cloud float up from the peak.

What in— They had advanced through a narrow knife-cut gash between turreted walls, and emerged upon a broad ledge, flanked by a series of rugged slopes on one hand, and a gigantic precipice on the other. The dim trail followed this ledge, bent around a shoulder, and reappeared in intervals far below, working a tedious way downward. And emerging from the cut that opened upon the ledge, the black stallion halted short, snorting. Conan urged him on impatiently, and the horse snorted and threw his head up and down, quivering and straining as if against an invisible barrier. Conan swore and swung off, lifting Yasminah down with him.

He went forward with a hand thrown out before him as if expecting to encounter unseen resistance, but there was nothing to hinder him, though when he tried to lead the horse, it neighed shrilly and jerked back. Then Yasmina cried out, and Conan wheeled. hands starting to knifehilt. Neither of them had seen him come, but he stood there, with his arms folded, a man in a camel hair coat, and a green turban. Conan grunted with surprise to recognize the man the stallion had spurned in the ravine

outside the Wazuli village. To the devil are you, he demanded. The man did not answer. Conan noticed that his eyes were wide. fixed and of a peculiar luminous quality, and those eyes held his like a magnet. Kemsaw's sorcery was based on hypnotism, as is the case with most Eastern magic. The way had been prepared for the hypnotists for untold centuries of generations who have lived and died in the firm conviction of the reality and power of hypnotism, building up by mass

thought and practice, a colossal, though intangible atmosphere against which the individual steeped in the traditions of the land finds himself helpless. But Conan was not a son of the East. Each traditions were meaningless to him. He was the product of an utterly alien atmosphere. Hypotism was not even a myth in Samaria. The heritage that prepared a native of the East for submission to the Mesmerist was not his. is.

He was aware of what Kimsa was trying to do to him, but he felt the impact of a man's uncanny power only as a vague impulsion, a tugging and pulling that he could shake off as a man shakes spider webs from his garments. Aware of hostility and black magic, he ripped out his long knife and lunged as quick on his feet as a mountain lion. But hypnotism was not all of Kimsa's magic. Yasminah watching did not see by what roguery of movement or illusion the man in the green turban avoided the terrible disemboweling thrust.

But the keen blade wickered between side and lifted arm, and to Yasminah it seemed that Kimsa merely brushed his open palm lightly against Conan's bold neck. But the Samarian went down as a slain ox. Yet Conan was not dead. Breaking his fall with his left hand, he slashed at Kim Saw's legs even as he went down, and the Rockshaw avoided the scythe-like swipe only by a most unwisitely bound backward. Then Yasminah cried out sharply as she saw a woman she recognized as Guitarah glide out from among the rocks and come up to the man. The greeting died in the Debbie's throat.

as she saw the malevolence in the girl's beautiful face. Conan was rising slowly, shaken and dazed by the cruel craft of the blow, which, delivered with an art forgotten of men before Atlantis sank, would have broken like a rotten twig, the neck of a lesser man. Kim Sock gazed at him cautiously, and a trifle uncertainly. The Rakhha had learned the full flood of his own power when he faced at bay the knives of the maddened wazuli in the ravine behind Corun village. But the Samarians' resistance had perhaps shaken his newfound confidence a trifle.

Sorcery thrives on success, not on failure. He stepped forward, lifting his hand, then halted as if frozen, head tilted back, eyes wide open, hand raised. In spite of himself, Conan followed his gaze, and so, the women, the girl cowering by the trembling stallion, and the girl beside Kimsa. Down the mountain slopes, like a whirl of shining dust blown before the wind, a crimson conoid cloud came dancing. Kimsa's dark face turned ashen.

His hand began to tremble, then sank to his side. The girl beside him, sensing the change in him, stared at him inquiringly. the crimson shape left the mountain slope and came down in a long arching sweep it struck the ledge between conan and kim sa and the rochah gave back with a stifled cry he backed away pushing the girl guitar back with groping fending hands the crimson cloud balanced like a spinning top for an instant whirling in a dazzling sheen on its point then without warning it was gone vanished as a bubble vanishes when burst there on the ledge stood four men it was miraculous incredible impossible yet it was true they were not ghosts or phantoms they were four tall men with shaven vulture-like heads and black robes that hid their feet their hands were concealed by their wide sleeves they stood in silence their naked heads their naked heads their naked heads their naked heads were concealed by their wide sleeves their naked heads their naked heads nodding slightly in unison. They were facing Kimsa, but behind them Conan felt his own blood turning to ice in his veins. Rising, he backed stealthily away until he could feel the

stallion's shoulder trembling against his back, and the Devi crept into the shelter of his arm. There was no word spoken. Silence hung like a stifling pall. All four of the men in black robes stared at Kim Sa. Their vulture-like faces were immobile, their eyes introspective and contemplative. But Kim Sa shook like a man in an ague. His feet were braced on the rock, his calves straining as if in physical combat. Sweat ran in streams down his dark face. His right hand locked on something under his brown robe so desperately that the blood ebbed from that hand and left it white. His left hand fell on the shoulder of Guitara and clutched in agony like the grasp of a drowning

man. She did not flinch or whimper, though his fingers dug like talons into her firm flesh. Conan had witnessed hundreds of battles in his wild life, but never one like this, wherein four diabolical wills sought to beat down one lesser but equally devil will that opposed to them. But he only faintly sensed the monstrous quality of that hideous struggle. With his back to the wall, driven to bay by his former masters, Kim Sa was fighting for his life with all the dark powers, all the frightful knowledge they had taught him through long, grim years of neophytism and vassalage. He was stronger than even he had guessed, and

the free exercise of his powers in his own behalf had tapped unsuspected reservoirs of forces, and he was nerved to super-energy by frantic fear and desperation. He reeled before the merciless impact of those hypnotic eyes, but he held his ground. His features were distorted into a bestial grin of agony, and his limbs were twisted as on a rack. It was a war of souls. of frightful brains steeped in lore forbidden to men for a million years of mentalities which had plumbed the abysses and explored the dark stars where spawned the shadows yasmina understood this better than did conan and she dimly understood why kimsa could withstand the concentrated impact of those four hellish wills which might have blasted into atoms the very rock on which he stood

the reason was the girl that he clutched with the strength of his despair she was like an anchor to his staggering soul battered by the ways of those psychic emanations his weakness was now his strength his love for the girl violent and evil though it might be was yet a tie that bound him to the rest of humanity providing an earthly leverage for his will a chain that is inhuman enemies could not break, at least not break through Kimsa. They realized that before he did, and one of them turned his gaze from the Rakshah full upon Guitara. There was no battle there. The girl shrank and wilted like a leaf in the drought. Irresistibly impelled, she tore herself from her lover's arms before he realized what was

happening. Then a hideous thing came to pass. She began to back toward the precipice, facing her tormentors, her eyes wide and blank as dark gleaming glass from behind which a lamp had been blown out. Kemsa groaned and staggered toward her, falling into the trap set for him. A divided mind could not maintain the unequal battle. He was beaten, a straw in their hands. The girl went backward, walking like an automaton,

and kimsa reeled drunkenly after her hands vainly outstretched groaning slobbering in his pain his feet moving heavily like dead things on the very brink she paused standing stiffly her heels on the edge and he fell on his knees and crawled whimpering toward her groping for her to drag her back from destruction and just before his clumsy fingers touched her one of the wizards laughed like like the sudden bronze note of a bell in hell. The girl reeled suddenly, and, consummate climax of exquisite cruelty, reason and understanding flooded back into her eyes, which flared with awful fear. She screamed, clutched wildly at her lover's straining hand, and then, unable to save herself, fell headlong with a moaning cry. Kim Sa hauled himself to the edge and stared over.

His lips working as he mumbled to himself. Then he turned and stared for a long minute at his torturers, with wide eyes that held no human light. And then with a cry that almost burst the rocks, he reeled up and came rushing toward them a knife lifted in his hand. One of the rochahs stepped forward and stamped his foot. And as he stamped, there came a rumbling that grew swiftly through a grinding roar.

Where his foot struck, a crevice opened in the solid rock that widened instantly. Then, with a deafening crash, a whole section of the ledge gave way. There was a last glimpse of Kim Sov, with arms wildly upflung, and then he vanished amid the roar of the avalanche that thundered down into the abyss. The four looked contemplatively at the ragged edge of the rock that formed the new rim of the precipice, and then turned suddenly. Conan, thrown off his feet by the shutter of the mountain, was rising, lifting Yasmina. He seemed to move as slowly as his brain was working. He was befogged and stupid. He realized that there was a desperate need for him to lift the debby on the

back of the stallion and ride like the wind. But an unaccountable sluggishness weighted his every thought and action. And now the wizards had turned, toward him, they raised their arms, and to his horrified sight. He saw their outlines fading, dimming, becoming hazy and nebulous, as a crimson smoke billowed around their feet and rose about them. They were blocked out by a sudden whirling cloud, and then he realized that he, too, was enveloped in a blinding crimson mist. He heard Yasmina scream, and the stallion cried out like a woman in pain. The Devey was torn from his arm, and as he lashed out with this knife blindly, a terrific blow like a gust of stormwind knocked him sprawling against a rock.

Dazedly he saw a crimson conoid cloud spinning up and over the mountain slopes. Yasmina was gone, and so were the four men in black. Only the terrified stallion shared the ledge with him. End of Chapter 6. Chapter 7 of The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 7. On to Yem Shah.

As mists vanish before a strong wind, the cobwebs vanished from Conan's brain. With a searing curse he leaped into the saddle, and the stallion reared neighing beneath him. He glared up at the slopes, hesitated, and then turned down the trail in the direction he had been going when halted by Kim Shaw's trickery. But now he did not ride at a measured gate. He shook loose the reins, and the stallion went like a thunderbolt, as if frantic to lose hysteria in violent physical exertion.

Across the ledge and around the crag and down the narrow trail, threatening the great steep, plunged at breakneck speed. The path followed a fold of rock, winding interminably down from tier to tier of striated escarpment, and once far below, Conan got a glimpse of the ruin that had fallen, a mighty pile of broken stone and boulders at the foot of a gigantic cliff. The valley floor was still far below him when he reached a long and lofty ridge that led out from the slope of a natural causeway. Out upon this he rode, with an almost sheer drop on either hand. He could trace ahead of him the trail and made a great horseshoe back into the riverbed at his left hand. He cursed the necessity of traversing those miles, but it was

the only way. To try to descend to the lower lap of the trail here would be to attempt the impossible. Only a bird could get to the riverbed with a whole neck. So he urged on the wearying stallion until a clink of hoofs reached his ears, welling up from below. Pulling up short and raining to the lip of the cliff, he stared down into the dry riverbed that wound along the foot of the ridge. Along that gorge rode a motley throng, bearded men on half-wild horses, five hundred strong. bristling with weapons. And Conan shouted suddenly, leaning over the edge of the cliff,

300 feet above them. At his shout they reigned back, and 500 bearded faces were tilted up towards him. A deep, clamorous roar filled the canyon. Conan did not waste words. I was riding for gore, he roared. I had not hoped to meet you dogs on the trail. Follow me as fast as your nags can push. I'm going to Yimshah and—

"'Trator!' The howl was like a dash of ice water in his face. "'What?' he glared down at them, jolted speechless. He saw wild eyes blazing up at him, faces contorted with fury, fists brandishing blades. "'Trator!' they roared back wholeheartedly. "'Where are the seven chiefs held captive in Peshkauri?' Why, in the governor's prison, I suppose? he answered.

A bloodthirsty yell from a hundred throats answered him, with such a waving of weapons and a clamor, that he could not understand what they were saying. He beat down the den with a bull-like roar and bellowed, What devil's play is this? Let one of you speak so I can understand what you mean. A gaunt old chief elected himself to this position, shook him. his tulwar at Conan as a preamble, and shouted accusingly, You would not let us go raiding Peshkhauri to rescue our brothers.

No, you fools, roared the exasperated Samaria. Even if you'd breach the wall, which is unlikely, they'd have hanged the prisoners before you could reach them. And you went alone to traffic with the governor, yelled the Afghuli, working himself into a frothing, frenzy. Well, where are the seven chiefs?" Howled the old chief, making his tool wore into a glimmering wheel of steel about his head. Where are they dead?

What? Conan nearly fell off his horse in his surprise. I did. Five hundred bloodthirsty voices assured him. The old chief brandish his arms and got the floor again. They were not hanged, he screeched. A wazuli in another cell saw them die.

The governor sent a wizard to slay them by craft. That must be a lie, said Conan. The governor would not dare. Last night I talked with him. The admission was unfortunate. A yell of hate and accusations split the skies. You went to him alone, to betray us. It is no lie.

The Wazuli escaped through the doors The wizard burst in his entry and told a tale to our scouts whom he met in Zybar. They had been sent forth to search for you When they heard the Wazuli's tale, They returned with all haste to gore, And we saddled our steeds and girt our swords. and what do you fools mean to do demanded the samarian to avenge our brothers they howled death to the kashadrias slay him brothers he is a traitor

arrows began to rattle around him conan rose in his stirrups striving to make himself heard above the tumult and then with a roar of mingle rage defiance and disgust he wheeled and galloped back up the trail. Behind him and below him the Fuglies came pelting, mouthing their rage, too furious, even to remember that the only way they could reach the height whereon he rode was to traverse the riverbed in the other direction, make the broad bend, and follow the twisting trail up over the ridge. When they did remember this and turned back, their repudiated chief had almost reached the point where the ridge joined the escarpment. At the cliff he did not take the trail by which he had descended, but turned off on another, a mere trace along a rock vault, where the stallion scrambled for footing.

He had not ridden far when the stallion snorted and shied back from something lying in the trail. Conan stared down on the travesty of a man, a broken, shredded, bloody heap that gibbered and gnashed splintered teeth. Impeled by some obscure reason, Conan dismounted and stood looking down at the ghastly shape, knowing that he was witness of a thing miraculous and opposed to nature. The Raksha lifted his gory head and his strange eyes, glazed with agony and approaching death, rested on Conan with recognition.

Where are they? It was a racking crowy. not even remotely resembling a human voice. Going back to their damnedable castle on Yem Shah, grunted Conan. They took the Devi with them. I will go, muttered the man. I will follow them. They killed, Guitara.

I will kill them. The acolyte. the fore of the black circle. The master himself. Kill. Kill them all. He strove to drag his mutilated frame along the rock, but not even his indomitable will could animate that gory mass longer,

where the splintered bones hung together only by torn tissue and ruptured fiber. Follow that. "'A-em!' raved Kim-saw, drooling a bloody slaver. "'Follow!' "'I'm going to,' growled Conan. "'I went to fetch my of goolies, but they turned on me. "'I'm going on to Yim-Shah loan. "'I'll have the Debbie back if I have to tear down that damned mountain with my bare hands.

"'I didn't think the Governor would dare kill my headman when I had the Debbie. But it seems he did. I'll have his head for that. She's no use to me now as a hostage, but— The curse of Yizzle on them, gasped Kimesa. Go, I am dying. Wait, take my girdle. He tried to fumble with a mangled hand.

at his tatters, and Conan, understanding what he sought to convey, bent and drew from about his gory waist a girdle of curious aspect. "'Follow the golden vein through the abyss,' muttered Kemsa. "'Where the girdle?' "'I had it from a Stygian priest. It will aid you, though it failed. me at last. Break the crystal globe with the four golden pomegranates.

Beware of the master's transmutations. I am going to guitar. She is waiting for me in hell. Ah, ah, ah, Skilos, ya. And so he died. Conan stared down at the girdle. The hair of which it was woven was not horsehair. He was convinced that it was woven of the thick black tresses of a woman.

Set in the thick mesh were tiny jewels such as he had never seen before. The buckle was strangely made in the form of a golden serpent head, flat, wedge-shaped, and scaled with curious art. A strong shudder shook Conan as he handled it, and he turned as though to cast it over the precipice. Then he hesitated, and finally buckled it about his waist under the Bukharriot girdle. Then he mounted and pushed on.

The sun had sunk behind the crags. He climbed the trail in the vast shadow of the cliffs that was thrown out like a dark blue mantle over valleys and ridges far below. He was not far from the crest when, edging around the shoulder of a jutting crag, he heard the clink of shod hoofs ahead of him. He did not turn back. Indeed, so narrow was the path that the stallion could not have wheeled his great body upon it. He rounded the jut of the rock and came upon a portion of the path that broadened somewhat. A chorus of threatening yells broke on his ear, but his stallion pinned a terrified horse hard against the rock, and Conan caught the arm of the rider in an iron grip, checking the lifted sword in mid-air.

"'Kerim Shah!' muttered Conan, red glints smouldering luridly in his eyes. eyes. The Terranian did not struggle. They sat their horses almost breast to breast, Conan's fingers locking the other's sword arm. Behind Karim Shah filed a group of lean Araksai on gaunt horses. They glared like wolves, fingering bows and knives, but rendered uncertain because of the narrowness of the path and the perilous proximity of the abyss that yawned beneath them." "'Where is the Devi?' demanded Karim Shah. "'What's it to you, you Hercadian spy?' snarled Conan.

"'I know you have her,' answered Karim Shah. I was on my way northward with some tribesmen when we were ambushed by enemies in Shaliza Pass. Many of my men were slain, and the rest of us harried through the hills like jackals. When we had beaten off our pursuers we turned westward toward our Arim Jahun Pass, and this morning we came upon a wazuli wandering through the hills. He was quite mad, but I learned much from his incoherent gibberings before he died. I learned that he was the sole survivor of a band which followed a chief of the Afghulis

and a captive Cheshattria woman into a gorge behind Karum village. He babbled much of a man in a green turban whom the Afguli rose. down, but who, when attacked by the Wazuli who pursued, smote them with a nameless doom that wiped them out as a gust of wind-driven fire wipes out a cluster of locuses. How that one man escaped I do not know, nor did he. But I knew from his maunderings that Conan of Gore had been in Karum with his royal captive, and as we made our way through the hills we overtook a naked Galzai girl. bearing a gourd of water, who told us a tale of having been stripped and ravished by a giant

foreigner in the garb of an Aguili's chief, who she said gave her garments to a Vinyan woman who accompanied him. She said you rode westward. Karim Shah did not consider it necessary to explain that he had been on his way to keep his rendezvous with the expected troops from Secundaram, when he found his way barred by hobo hostile tribesmen. The road to Gorosha Valley through Shaliza Pass was longer than the road that wound through Amir Jahun Pass, but the latter traversed part of the Abhuli country, which Karim Shah had been anxious to avoid until he came with an army. Bored from the Shaliza road, however, he had turned to the forbidden route until news that Conan had not yet reached

Afculistan with his captive had caused him to turn southward and push on recklessly in the hope of overtaking the Samarian in the hills. "'So you had better tell me where the Devi is,' suggested Karim Shah. "'We outnumber you. Let one of your dogs notch a shaft, and I'll throw you over the cliff,' Conan promised. "'It wouldn't do you any good to kill me anyhow. Five hundred of goolies are on my trail, and if they find you've cheated them, they'll flay you alive. Anyway, I haven't got the Debbie.

She's in the hands of the black seers of Yimshah. Tarum, swore Kadymsha softly, shaken out of his poise for the first time. Kemsa! Kamsa's dead, grunted Conan. His master sent him to hell on a landslide, and now get out of my way. I'd be glad to kill you if I had the time, but I'm on my way to Yim Shah. I'll go with you, said the Terranian abruptly. Conan laughed at him.

Do you think I trust you? You Hercanian dog. I didn't ask you to, returned Karim Shah. We both want the Debbie. You know my reason. King Yestergaard desires to add her kingdom to his empire, and herself in his sarah. And I knew you, in the days when you were a hatman, of the Cossack steps, so I know your

ambition is wholesale plunder. You want to loot, Vinya, and to twist out a huge ransom for Yasminah. Well, let us, for the time being, without any illusion about each other, unite our forces and try to rescue the Devee from the Sears. If we succeed and live, we can fight it out to see who can keeps her." Conan narrowly scrutinized the other for a moment, and then nodded, releasing the Terranian's arm.

Agreed. What about your men? Karim Shah turned to the silent Iraq's eye and spoke briefly. This chief and I are going to Yimsa to fight the wizards. Will you go with us, or stay here to be flayed by the Fulis who are following this man? They looked at him with eyes grimly fatalistic. They were doomed, and they knew it. Had known it ever since the stinging arrows of the ambushed Dagozai had driven them back from

the pass of Shaliza. The men of the lower Zybar had too many reeking blood feuds among the Craigdwellers. They were too small a band to fight their way back through the hills to the villages of the border without the guidance of the craftyterranean. They counted themselves as dead already, so they made the reply that only dead men would make. We will go with thee and I on Yem Shah. Then, in Crom's name, let us begin, grunted Conan, fidgeting with impatience as he started into the blue gulfs of the deepening twilight.

My wolves were ours behind me, but we've lost a devilish lot of time." Karim Shah backed his steed from between the black stallion. and the cliff sheathed his sword and cautiously turned the horse. Presently the band was filing up the path as swiftly as they dared. They came out upon the crest nearly a mile east of the spot where Kemsha had halted the Samarian and the Devi. The path they had traversed was a perilous one even for hillmen, and for that reason Conan had avoided it that day when carrying Gassimina. Though Karim Shah following him, had taken it, supposing the samarian had done likewise even conan sighed with relief when the horses scrambled up over the last rim they moved like phantom riders through an enchanted realm of shadows the soft creak of leather the clink of steel marked their passing

then again the dark mountain slopes lay naked and silent in the starlight end of chapter seven chapter eight of the people of the black circle by Robert E. Howard. This Libri-Vox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 8. Yasmina No Stark Terror Yasmina had time but for one scream when she felt herself enveloped in the crimson whirl and torn from her protector with appalling force.

She screamed once, and then she had no breath to scream. She was blinded, deafened, rendered. mute and eventually senseless by the terrific rushing of the air about her. There was a dazed consciousness of dizzy height and numbing speed, a confused impression of natural sensations gone mad, and then vertigo and oblivion. A vestige of these sensations clung to her as she recovered consciousness, so she cried out and clutched wildly,

as though to stay a headlong and involuntary fern. flight. Her fingers closed on soft fabric, and a relieving sense of stability pervaded her. She took cognizance of her surroundings. She was lying on a dais covered with black velvet. This dais stood in a great dim room, whose walls were hung with dusky tapestries, across which crawled dragons reproduced with repellent realism. Floating shadows merely hinted at the lofty ceiling, and gloom that lent itself to illusion lurked in the corners. There seemed to be neither windows nor doors in the walls, or else they were concealed by the

knighted tapestries. Where the dim light came from, Yasminah could not determine. The great room was a realm of mysteries or shadows and shadowy shapes, in which she could not have sworn to observe movement yet which invaded her mind with a dim and formless terror. But her gaze fixed itself on a tangible object. On another, smaller dais of a jet, a few feet away, a man sat cross-legged, gazing contemplatively at her. His long black velvet robe, embroidered with gold thread, fell loosely about him. him, masking his figure. His hands were folded in his sleeves. There was a velvet cap upon

his head. His face was calm, placid, not unhandsome. His eyes lambent and slightly oblique. He did not move a muscle as he sat regarding her, nor did his expression alter when he saw she was conscious. Gassimina felt fear crawl like a trickle of ice water, down her supple spine. She lifted herself on her elbows and stared apprehensively at the stranger. Who are you? she demanded. Her voice sounded brittle and inadequate. I am the master of Vimshaw. The tone was rich and resonant like the mellow tones of a temple bell. Why did you bring me here? she demanded. Were you not seeking me?

If you are one of the black seers, yes, she answered recklessly, believing that he could read her thoughts anyway. He laughed softly, and chills crawled up and down her spine again. You would turn the wild children of the hills against the seers of Yimshah, he smiled. I have read it in your mind, princess. Your weak human mind, filled with petty dreams of hate and revenge. You slew my brother! A rising tide of anger was vying with her fear.

Her hands were clenched, her lithe body rigid. Why did you persecute him? He never harmed you? The priests say the seers are above meddling in human affairs. Why did you destroy the king of Vinya? how can an ordinary human understand the motives of a seer return the master calmly my acolytes in the temples of turan who are the priests behind the priests of ta'im urged me to bestore myself in behalf of yestegard for reasons of my own i complied how can i explain my mystic reasons to your puny intellect. You could not understand.

I understand this, that my brother died. Tears of grief and rage shook in her voice. She rose upon her knees and stared at him with wide, blazing eyes, as supple and dangerous in that moment as a she-penter. "'Has Yestegerd desired?' answered the master calmly. "'For a while it was my whim. to further his ambitions. Is Yestergird your vassal? Yasmina tried to keep the timbre of her voice unaltered.

She had felt her knee pressing something hard and symmetrical under a fold of velvet. Suttly she shifted her position, moving her hand under the fold. Is the dog that licks up the oafel in the temple yard, the vassal of the god? Returned the master. He did not seem to notice the actions she sought to dissemble, concealed by the velvet.

Her fingers closed on what she knew was the golden hilt of a dagger. She bent her head to hide the light of triumph in her eyes. I am weary of Yestegard, said the master. I have turned to other amusements. Ha! With a fierce cry, Yasminah sprang like a jungle cat, stabbing murderous. Then she stumbled and slid to the floor, where she cowered, staring up at the man on the dais.

He had not moved. His cryptic smile was unchanged. Tremblingly she lifted her hand and stared at it with dilated eyes. There was no dagger in her fingers. They grasped a stalk of golden lotus, the crushed blossoms drooping on the bruised stem. She dropped it, as if it had been a viper, and scrambled away from the proximity of her tormentor. She returned to her own dais, because that was at least more dignified for a queen than groveling

on the floor at the feet of a sorcerer, and, eyeing him apprehensively, expecting reprisals. But the master gave no move. All substance is one to him who holds the key of the cosmos. He said cryptically. To an adept, nothing is immutable. At will, steel blossoms bloom in unnamed gardens, or flower soars flash in the moonlight. You are a devil, she sobbed.

Ha, ha, not I. He laughed. I was born on this planet, long ago. Once I was a common man. Nor have I lost all human attributes in the numberless eons of my adeptship. A human steeped in the dark arts is greater than a devil. I am of human origin, but I rule demons. You have seen the lords of the black circle.

It would blast your soul to hear from what for realm I summoned them, and from what do you Doom I guard them with insorcelled crystal and golden serpents. But only I can rule them. My foolish Kimsa thought to make himself great. Poor fool! Bursting material doors and hurtling himself in his mistress through the air from hill to hill. Yet if he had not been destroyed, his power might have grown to rival mine. He laughed again.

And you, poor silly thing, plotting to send a hairy hill chief to storm Yimsa. It was such a jest that I myself could have designed, had it occurred to me that you should fall in his hands. And I read in your childish mind an intention to seduce by your feminine wiles to attempt your purpose anyway. But for all your stupidity, you are a woman fair to look upon. It is my whim to keep you for my slave. The daughter of a thousand proud emperors gasped with shame and fury at the word.

You dare not! His mocking laughter cut her like a whip across her. naked shoulders. The king dares not trample a worm in the road? Little fool! Do you not realize that your royal pride is no more than a straw blown on the wind? I who have known the kisses of the queens of hell! You have seen how I deal with a rebel.

Cowed and awed, the girl crouched on the velvet-covered dais. The light grew dimmer and more phantom-like. The features of the master became shadowy. His voice took on a newer tone of command. I will never yield to you, her voice trembled with fear, but it carried a ring of resolution. You will yield, he answered with horrible conviction. Fear and pain shall teach you. you.

I will lash you with horror and agony to the last quivering outs of your endurance, until you become as melted wax to be bent and molded in my hands as I desire. You shall know such discipline as no mortal woman ever knew, until my slightest command is to you as the unalterable will of the gods. And first, to humble your pride, you shall travel back through the lost ages, and view all the shapes that have been you. Ay, yelagosa! At these words the shadowy room swam before Yasmina's affrighted gaze.

The roots of her hair prickled her scalp, and her tongue clove to her palate. Somewhere a gong sounded a deep, ominous note. The dragons on the tapestries glowed like blue fire and then faded out. The master on his dais was but a shapeless shadow. The dim light gave way to soft, thick darkness, almost tangible, that pulsed with strange radiations. She could no longer see the master. She could see nothing. She had a strange sensation that the walls and ceiling had withdrawn immensely from her.

Then somewhere in the darkness a glow began, like a firefly that rhythmically dimmed and quickened. It grew to a golden ball, and as it expanded, its light grew more intense, flaming whitely. It burst suddenly. showering the darkness with white sparks that did not illumine the shadows. But, like an impression left in the gloom, a faint luminescence remained, and revealed a slender, dusky shaft shooting up from the shadowy floor. Under the girl's dilated gaze, it spread, took shape. Stems and broad leaves appeared in great black poisonous blossoms

that towered above her as she crows. fringed against the velvet. A subtle perfume pervaded the atmosphere. It was the dread figure of the black lotus that had grown up as she watched, as it grows in the haunted, forbidden jungles of Kaitai. The broad leaves were murmurous with evil life. The blossoms bent toward her like sentient things, nodding serpent-like on pliant stems. Etched, against soft, impenetrable darkness, it loomed over her, gigantic, blackly visible in some mad way. Her brain reeled with the drugging scent, and she sought to crawl from the dais.

Then she clung to it, as it seemed to be pitching at an impossible slant. She cried out with terror and clung to the velvet, but she felt her fingers ruthlessly torn away. There was a sensation as of all sanity and stability crumbling and vanishing. She was a quivering atom of sentiency, driven through a black, roaring, icy void, by a thundering wind that threatened to extinguish her feeble flicker of animate life, like a candle blown out in a storm. Then there came a period of blind impulse and movement,

when the atom that was she mingled and merged. with myriad other atoms of spawning life in the yeasty morass of existence molded by formative forces until she emerged again a conscious individual whirling down an endless spiral of lives in the midst of terror she relived all her former existences recognized and was again all the bodies that had carried her ego throughout the change changing ages. She bruised her feet again over the long, weary road of life that stretched out behind her into the immemorial past. Back, beyond the dimmest dawns of time, she crouched shuddering in primordial jungles, hunted by slavering beasts of prey. Skin-clad, she waited thigh-deep in the rice swamps, battling with squawking waterfowl for the precious grains. She labored with the oxen to drag the pointed stick through the stubborn soil, and she

crouched endlessly over looms in peasant huts. She saw walled cities burst into flame, and fled screaming before the slayers. She reeled naked and bleeding over burning sands, dragged at the slaver's stirrup, and she knew the grip of hot fierce hands on her writhing flesh. shame and agony of brutal lust. She screamed under the bite of the lash and moaned on the rack. Mad with terror she fought against the hands that forced her head inexorably down on the bloody block.

She knew the agonies of childbirth and the bitterness of love betrayed. She suffered all the woes and wrongs and brutalities that man has inflicted on woman throughout the eons. And she endured all the spite and malice of women for woman. And like the flick of a fiery whip throughout was the consciousness she retained of her Devi ship. She was all the women she had ever been, yet in her knowing she was Yasminah. This consciousness was not lost in the throes of reincarnation. At one and the same time she was a a naked slave wench grovelling under the whip and the proud Devi of Vinya. And she suffered not only as the slave-girl suffered, but as Yasmina, to whose pride the whip

was like a white-hot brand. Life emerged into life in flying chaos, each with its burden of woe and shame and agony, So she dimly heard her own voice screaming unbearably, like one long-drawn cry of suffering echoing down the ages. Then she awakened on the velvet-covered dais in the mystic room. In a ghostly gray light she saw again the dais and the cryptic-robed figure seated upon it. The hooded head was bent, the high shoulders fainted-shoulders faint against the uncertain dimness.

could make out no details clearly, but the hood, where the velvet cap had been, stirred a formless uneasiness in her. As she stared there stole over her a nameless fear that froze her tongue to her pellet, a feeling that it was not the master who sat so silently on that black dais. Then the figure moved and rose upright, towering above her. stooped over her, and the long arms in their wide black sleeves bent about her. She fought against them in speechless fright, surprised by their lean hardness. The hooded head bent down toward her averted face, and she screamed, and screamed, and screamed again in poignant

fear and loathing. Bony arms gripped her lithe body, and from that hood looked forth a countenance of death and decay, features like rotting parchment on a moldering skull. She screamed again, and then, as those champing, grinning jaws bent toward her lips, she lost consciousness. End of Chapter 8. Chapter 9 of The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 9 The Castle of the Wizards

The sun had risen over the white Himalian peaks. At the foot of a long slope a group of horsemen halted and stared upward, high above them a stone tower poised on the pitch of the mountainside. Beyond and above that gleamed the walls of a greater heap, near the line where the snow began that capped Yimshah's pinnacle. There was a touch of unreality about the hole, purple slopes pitching up to that fantastic castle, toy-like with distance, and above it the white-clistening peak, shouldering the cold blue. We'll leave the horses here, grunted Conan.

That treacherous slope is safer for a man on foot. Besides, they're done. He swung down from the black stallion, which stood with a little. with wide-braced legs and drooping head. They had pushed hard throughout the night, gnawing at scraps from saddle-bags and pausing only to give the horses the rest they had to have. That first tower is held by the acolytes of the Black Sears, said Conan, or so men say, watchdogs for their masters, lesser sorcerers. They won't sit sucking their thumbs as we climb this slope.

Kareem Shah glanced up at the mountain, then back the way they had come. They were already far up Yim Shah's side, and a vast expanse of lesser peaks and crags spread out beneath them. Among these labyrinths the Terranians sought in vain for a movement of color that would betray men. Evidently the pursuant of gullies had lost their chief's trail in the night. Let us go, then. They tied the weary horses in a clump of temerisk, and without further comment turned up the slope. There was no cover. It was a naked incline, strewn with boulders, not big enough to conceal a man.

But they did conceal something else. The party had not gone fifty steps when a snarling shape bursts from behind a rock. It was one of the gaunt savage dogs that infest some of the gauds. the hill villages, and its eyes glared redly, its jaws dripped foam. Conan was leading, but it did not attack him. It dashed past him, and leaped at Karim Shah. The Terennian leaped aside, and the great dog flung itself upon the Iraq side behind him. The man yelled and threw up his arm, which was torn by the brute's fangs as it bore him backward,

and the next instant half a dozen toolwars were hacking at the beast. Yet, not until it was literally dismembered, did the hideous creature seize its efforts to seize and rend its attackers. Karim Shah bound up the wounded warrior's gashed arm, looked at him narrowly, and then turned away without a word. He rejoined Conan, and they renewed the climb in silence. Presently Karim Shah said, Strange to find a village dog in this place?

There's no ophal here. Grunted Conan. Both turned their heads to glance back at the wounded warrior, tarling after them among his companions. Sweat glistened on his dark face, and his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a grimace of pain. Then both looked again at the stone tower squatting above them. A slumber's quiet lay over the uplands.

The tower showed no sign of life, nor did the strange pyramidal structure be beyond it, but the men who toiled upward went with the tenseness of men walking on the edge of a crater. Karim Shah had unslung the powerful Terranian bow that killed at five hundred paces, and the Araxai looked to their own lighter and less lethal bows. But they were not within bow-shot of the tower when something shot down out of the sky without warning. It passed so close to Conan that he felt the wind of rushing wings.

it was aneroxai who staggered and fell, blood jetting from a severed jugular. A hawk with wings like burnished steel shot up again, blood dripping from the cemeter beak to reel against the sky as Karim Shah's bowstring twanged. It dropped like a plummet, but no man saw where it struck the earth. Conan bent over the victim of the attack, but the man was already dead. No one spoke. Useless to comment on the fact that never before had a hawk been known to swoop on a man. Red rage began to vie with fatalistic lethargy in the wild souls of the Iroxai. Harry fingers knocked arrows, and men glared vengefully at the tower, whose very silence mocked

them. But the next attack came swiftly. They all saw it. A white puff ball of smoke that tumbled over the tower rim and came drifting and rolling down the slope toward them. Others followed it. They seemed harmless, mere woolly globes of cloudy foam. But Conan stepped aside to avoid contact with the first.

Behind him one of the Eroxai reached out and thrust his sword into the unstable mass. Instantly a sharp report shook the mountainside. was a burst of blinding flame, and then the puff ball had vanished, and the two curious warrior remained only a heap of charred and blackened bones. The crisp hand still gripped the ivory sword-hilt, but the blade was gone, melted and destroyed by that awful heat. Yet men standing almost within reach of the victim had not suffered, except to be dazzled and half-blinded by the sudden flare. Steel touches it off, grunted Conan.

Look out! Here they come. The slope above them was almost covered by the billowing spheres. Karim Shah bent his bow and sent a shaft into the mass, and those touched by the arrow burst like bubbles in spurting flame. His men followed his example, and for the next few minutes, it was as if a thunderstorm raged on the mountain. and slope, with bolts of lightning, striking, and bursting in showers of flame.

When the barrage ceased, only a few arrows were left in the quivers of the archers. They pushed on grimly, oversoil charred and blackened, where the naked rock had in places been turned to lava by the explosion of those diabolical bombs. Now they were almost within arrow flight of the silent tower, and they spread their line, nerves taut, ready for any horror that might descend upon them. On the tower appeared a single figure, lifting a ten-foot bronze horn. Its strident bellow roared out across the echoing slopes like the blare of trumpet sun-judgment day, and it began to be fearfully answered.

The ground trembled under the feet of the invaders, and rumblings and grindings welled up from the subterranean depths. The Irox eye screamed, reeling like drunken men on the shuttering slope, and Conan, eyes glaring, charged recklessly up the incline, knife in hand, straight at the door that showed in the tower wall. Above him the great horn roared and bellowed in brutish mockery. And then Karim Shah drew a shaft to his ear and loosed. Only a Terranian could have made that shot.

The bellowing of the horn ceased suddenly, and a high, thin scream shrilled in its place. The green-robed figure on the tower staggered, clutching at the long shaft, which quivered in its bosom, and then pitched across the parapet. The great horn tumbled upon the battlement, and hung precariously, and another robed figure rushed to seize it, shrieking in horror. Again the Terranian bow twanged, and again it was answered by a death-howl. The second acolyte in falling struck the horn with his elbow and knocked it clattering over the parapet to shatter on the rocks far below.

At such headlong speed had Conan covered the ground that before the clattering echoes of that fall had died away, he was hacking at the door, warned by his savage instinct. He gave back suddenly as the tide of molten lead splashed down from above. But the next instant he was back again attacking the panels with redoubled fury. He was galvanized by the fact that his enemies had resort to, to earthly weapons. The sorcery of the acolytes was limited. Their necromanic resources might well be exhausted.

Karim Shah was hurrying up the slope, his hillmen behind him in a straggling crescent. They loosed as they ran, their arrows splintering against the walls or arching over the parapet. The heavy, teak portal gave way beneath the Samarian's assault, and he peered inside warily, expecting anything. He was looking into a circular chamber,

from which a stair wound upward. On the opposite side of the chamber a door gaped open, revealing the outer slope, and the backs of half a dozen green-robed figures in full retreat. Conan yelled, took a step into the tower, and then native caution jerked him back, just as a great block of stone fell, crashing to the floor where his foot had been an instant before.

Shouting to his followers, he raced around the tower. The Acolytes had evacuated their first line of defense. As Conan rounded the tower, he saw their green robes twinkling up the mountain ahead of him. He gave chase, panting with earnest bloodlust, and behind him Karim Shah and the Iroxai came pelting, the latter yelling like one. wolves at the flight of their enemies. Their fatalism momentarily submerged by temporary triumph.

The tower stood on the lower edge of a narrow plateau, whose upward slant was barely perceptible. A few hundred yards away, this plateau ended abruptly in a chasm, which had been invisible further down the mountain. Into this chasm, the acolytes apparently leaped without checking their speed. Their pursuers saw the green robes flutter and disappear over the edge. A few moments later they themselves were standing on the brink of the mighty moat that cut them off from the castle of the Black Sears. It was a sheer-walled ravine that extended in either direction as far as they could see, apparently girdling the mountain some 400 yards in width and 500 feet deep, and in it, from rim to rim, a strange, translucent mist sparkled and shimmered.

Looking down, Conan grunted. Far below him, moving across the glimmering floor, which shone like burnished silver, he saw the forms of the green-robed acolytes. Their outline was wavering and indistinct, like figures seen under deep water. They walked in single file, moving toward the opposite wall. Karim Shah knocked an arrow and sent it singing downward, but when it struck the mist that filled the chasm, it seemed to lose momentum and direction, wondering widely from its course. "'If they went down, so can we,' grunted Conan, while Karim Shah stared after his shaft

in amazement. I saw them last at this spot. Squinting down, he saw something shining like a golden thread across the canyon floor far below. The Acolytes seemed to be following this thread, and there suddenly came to him, Kimsa's cryptic words. Follow the golden vein. On the brink, under his very hand as he crouched he found it, a thin vein of sparkling

gold, running from an outcropping of ore to the edge and down. down across the silvery floor, and he found something else, which had before been invisible to him because of the peculiar refraction of the light. The gauvelane followed a narrow ramp which slanted down into the ravine, fitted with niches for hand and foothold. Here's where they went down, he grunted to Karim Shah. There are no adepts to waft themselves through the air. We'll follow them.

It was at that instant that the man who had been bitten by the mad dog cried out horribly and leaped at Karim Shah, foaming and gnashing his teeth. The Terranian, quick as a cat on his feet, sprang aside, and the madman pitched head first over the brink. The others rushed to the edge and glared after him in amazement. The maniac did not fall plummet-like. He floated slowly down through the rosy hay. like a man sinking in deep water.

His limbs moved like a man trying to swim, and his features were purple and convulsed beyond the contortions of his madness. Far down at last on the shining floor, his body settled and lay still. "'There's death in that chasm,' muttered Karim Shah, drawing back from the rose he missed that shimmered almost at his feet. What now, Conan? On, answer the Samarian, grimly. Those acolytes are human.

If the mist doesn't kill them, it won't kill me. He hitched his belt, and his hands touched the girdle Kim Shaw had given him. He scowled. Then smiled bleakly. He had forgotten that girdle, yet thrice had death passed him by to strike another victim. The acolytes had reached. reached the farther wall and were moving up it like great green flies. Letting himself upon the ramp, he descended warily.

The rosy cloud lapped about his ankles, ascending as he lowered himself. It reached his knees, his thighs, his waist, his armpits. He felt as one feels a thick, heavy fog on a damp night. With it lapping about his chin he hesitated, and then ducked under. Instantly his breath ceased. All air was shut off from him, and he felt his ribs caving in on his vitals. With a frantic effort he heaved himself up, fighting for life. His head rose above the surface, and he drank air in great gulps. Kadyem Shah leaned down toward him, spoke to him, but Conan neither heard nor heeded. Stubbornly, his mind fixed on what the dying Kimsa had told

him, the Samarian groped for the gold vein, and found that he had moved off it in his descent. Several series of hand-holes were niched in the ramp. Placing himself directly over the thread, he began climbing down once more. The rosy mist rose about him, engulfed him. Now his head was under, but he was still drinking pure air. Above him he saw his companions staring down at him. features blurred by the haze that shimmered over his head. He gestured for them to follow, and went down swiftly without waiting to see whether they complied or not.

Karim Shah sheathed his sword without comment, and followed, and theeroxai, more fearful of being left alone than of the terrors that might lurk below, scrambled after him. Each man clung to the golden thread as they saw the Samarian dew. Down the slanting ramp they went to the ravine floor, and moved out across the shining level, treading the gold vein like rope-walkers. It was as if they walked along an invisible tunnel through which air circulated freely. They felt death pressing in on them above and on either hand, but it did not touch them. The vein crawled up a similar ramp on the other wall, up which the Acolytes had disappeared,

And up it they went, with taut nerves, not knowing what might be waiting for them among the jutting spurs of rock that fanged the lip of the precipice. It was the green-robed acolytes who awaited them with knives in their hands. Perhaps they had reached the limits to which they could retreat. Perhaps the Stygian girdle about Conan's waist could have told why their necromanic spells had proven so weak and so quickly exhausted. Perhaps it was knowledge of death decreed for failure that sent them leaping from among the rocks, eyes glaring and knives glittering, resorting in their desperation to material weapons.

There, among the rocky fangs on the precipice lip, was no war of wizardcraft. It was a whirl of blades where real steel bit and real blood spurted, where sinewy arms dealt forthright blows that severed quivering flesh, and men went down to be trodden underfoot as the fight raged over them. One of the Araxai bled to death among the rocks, but the Acolytes were down, slashed and hacked asunder, or hurled over the edge to float sluggishly down to the silver floor that shone so far below. Then the conquerors shook blood and sweat from their eyes and looked at one another.

and Karim Shah still stood upright, and four of the Iroxai. They stood among the rocky teeth that serrated the precipice brink, and from that spot a path wound up a gentle slope to a broad stair consisting of half a dozen steps, a hundred feet across, cut out of a green jade-like substance. They led up to a broad stage or roofless gallery of the same polished stone, and above it rose, Tear upon tier, the castle of the black sears. It seemed to have been carved out of the sheer stone of the mountain. The architecture was faultless but unadorned. The many casements were barred and masked with curtains within. There was no sign of life friendly or hostile. They went up the path

in silence, and warily as men treading the lair of a serpent. The aroxye were dumb, like men marching to a certain doom. Even Karim Shah was silent. Only Conan seemed unaware what a monstrous dislocating and uprooting of accepted thought and action their invasion constituted. What an unprecedented violation of tradition. He was not of the East, and he came of a breed who fought devils and wizards as promptly and matter-of-factly as they battled human foes. He strode up the shining stairs and across the wide green gallery straight toward the great golden-bound teak door that opened upon it. He cast but a single glance upward at the higher tiers of the great pyramidal structure

towering above him. He reached a hand for the bronze prong that jutted like a handle from the door, then checked himself grinning heartily. The handle was made in the shape of a serpent, head lifted on arched neck. And Conan had a suspicion that that metal head would come to grizzly life under his hand. He struck it from the door with one blow, and its bronze clink on the glassy floor did not lessen his caution. He flipped it aside with his knife point and again turned to the door. Utter silence reigned over the towers.

Far below them the mountain slopes fell away into a purple haze of distance. The sun glittered on snow-clad peaks on either hand. High above, a vulture hung like a black dot in the cold blue of the sky. But for it the men before the gold-bound door were the only evidence of life, tiny figures on a green jade gallery, poised on the dizzy height with that fantastic pile of stone towering above them. A sharp wind off the snow slashed them, whipping their tatters about. Conan's long knife, splintering through the teak panels, roused the startled echoes.

Again and again he struck, hewing through polished wood and metal bands alike. Through the sundered ruins he glared into the interior, alert and suspicious as a wolf. He saw a broad chamber, the polished stone walls untapestried, the mosaic floor uncarpeted. Square polished Evan's stools, and a stone dais formed the only furnishings. The room was empty of human life. Another door showed in the opposite wall. Leave a man on guard outside, grunted Conan. I'm going in.

Gedim Shah designated a warrior for that duty, and the man fell. back toward the middle of the gallery, bow in hand. Conan strode into the castle, followed by the Terranian and the three remaining Iroxai. The one outside spat, grumbled in his beard, and started suddenly as a low, mocking laugh reached his ears. He lifted his head and saw, on the tear above him, a tall, black-robed figure, naked head nodding slightly as he stared down. His whole attitude suggested mockery and malignity. Quick as a flash, the Iraxai bent his bow and loosed, and the arrows streaked upward to strike full in the black-robed breast.

The mocking smile did not alter. The seer plucked out the missile and threw it back at the bowman, not as a weapon is hurled, but with a contemptuous gesture. The Iroxai dodged, instinctively throwing up his arm, his fingers closed on the revolving shaft. Then he shrieked. In his hand the wooden shaft suddenly writhed. Its rigid outline became pliant, melting in his grasp.

He tried to throw it from him, but it was too late. He held a living serpent in his naked hand, and already it had coiled about his wrist and its wicked wedge-shaped head darted at his muscular arm. He screamed again, and his eyes became distended, his features purple. He went to his knees, shaken by an awful convulsion, and then lay still. The men inside had wheeled at his first cry. Conan took a swift stride toward the open doorway and then halted short, baffled. To the men behind him, it seemed that he strained against empty air.

But though he could see nothing, there was a sifted. slick, smooth, hard surface under his hands, and he knew that a sheet of crystal had been let down in the doorway. Through it he saw the aroxi lying motionless on the glassy gallery, an ordinary arrow sticking in his arm. Conan lifted his knife and smote, and the watchers were dumbfounded to see his blow checked abruptly in mid-air, with a loud clang of steel that meets an unyield substance. He wasted no more effort. He knew that not even the legendary touloir of Amir Kurum could shatter that invisible curtain. In a few words he explained the matter to Karim Shah, and the Terranian shrugged his shoulders. Well, if our exit is barred, we must find another.

In the meanwhile, our way lies forward, does it not?" With a grunt the Samerian turned and strode across the chamber to the opposite door, with a feeling of treading on the threshold of doom. As he lifted his knife to shatter the door, it swung silently open as if of its own accord. He strode into the great hall, flanked with tall, glassy columns. A hundred feet from the door began the broad jade green steps of a stair that tapered toward the top like the side of a pyramid. What lay beyond that stare he could not tell. But between him and its shimmering foot stood a curious altar of gleaming black jade.

Four great golden serpents twined their tails about this altar and reared their wedge-shaped heads in the air, facing the four quarters of the compass like the enchanted guardians of a fabled treasure. But on the altar, between the arching necks, stood only a crystal globe, filled with a cloudy smoke-like substance, in which floated four golden pomegranates. The sight stirred some dim recollection in his mind. Then Conan heated the altar no longer.

Far on the lower steps of the stair stood four black-robed figures. He had not seen them come. They were simply there. Tall, gaunt. Their vulture heads nodding in unison, their feet and hands hidden by their flowing garments. One lifted his arm, and the sleeve fell away, revealing his hand, and it was not a hand at all. Conan halted in mid-stride, compelled against his will. He had encountered a force differing subtly from Kimsa's mesmerism, and he could not advance,

though he felt it in his power to retreat if he had encountered. he wished. His companions had like wise halted, and they seemed even more helpless than he unable to move in either direction. The seer whose arm was lifted beckoned to one of the Irox eye, and the man moved toward him like one in a trance, eyes staring and fixed, blade-hanging and limp fingers. As he pushed past Conan, the Samarian threw an arm across his breast to arrest him. Conan was so much stronger than the Araxai than in ordinary circumstances he could have broken his spine between his hands.

But now the muscular arm was brushed aside like straw, and the Araxai moved toward the stair, treading jerkily and mechanically. He reached the steps and knelt stiffly, proffering his blade and bending his head. The seer took the sword. It flashed as he swung it up. up and down. The Iroxai's head tumbled from his shoulders and thudded heavily on the black marble floor. An arch of blood jetted from the severed arteries, and the body slumped over, and lay with arms spread wide. Again a malformed hand-lifted and beckoned, and another

Iwaxi stumbled stiffly to his doom. The ghastly drama was reenacted and another headless form lay beside the first. As the third tribesman clumped his way past Conan to his death, the Sumerian, his veins bulging in his temples with his efforts to break past the unseen barrier that held him, was suddenly aware of allied forces unseen, but waking into life about him. This realization came without warning, but so powerfully that he could not doubt his instinct. His left hand slid involuntarily under his Bukharriot belt and closed on the Stitchian girdle. And as he gripped it, he felt new strength flood his numbed limbs.

The will to live was a pulsing white hot fire, matched by the intensity of his burning rage. The third Eroxie was a decapitated corpse, and the hideous finger was lifting again. when Conan felt the bursting of the invisible barrier. A fierce, involuntary cry burst from his lips as he leaped with the explosive suddenness of pent-up ferocity. His left hand gripped the sorcerer's girdle as a drowning man gripped, a floating log, and a long knife was a sheen of light in his right. The men on the steps did not move.

They watched calmly, cynically. If they felt surprised they did not show it. Conan did not allow himself to think what might chance when he came within knife-reach of them. His blood was pounding in his temples. A mist of crimson swam before his sight. He was a fire with the urge to kill, to drive his knife deep into flesh and bone and twist the blade in blood and entrails. Another dozen strides would carry him to the steps where the sneering demons stood.

He drew his breath deep, his fury rising redly as his charge gathered momentum. He was hurtling past the altar with its golden serpents. When a leaven flash there shot across his mind again as vividly as if spoken in his external ear, the cryptic words of Kimsa, break the crystal-guet. ball. His reaction was almost without his own volition. Execution following impulse so spontaneously, that the greatest sorcerer of the age would not have had time to read his mind and prevent his action. Wheeling like a cat from his headlong charge, he brought his knife crashing down upon the crystal. Instantly the air vibrated, with a peal of terror, whether from the stairs,

the altar or the crystal itself, he could not tell. Hisses filled his ears as the golden serpents, suddenly vibrant with hideous life, writhed and smote at him, but he was fired to the speed of a maddened tiger. A whirl of steel sheared through the hideous trunks that waved toward him, and he smote the crystal sphere again and yet again. And the globe burst with the noise like a thunder-clap, raining fiery shards on the black marble, and the gold pomegranates, as if released from captivity, shot upward toward the lofty roof and were gone. A mad, screaming, bestial and ghastly was echoing through the great hall. On the steps writhed four black-robed figures, twisting in convulsions, froth dripping from

their livid mouths. Then, with one frenzy crescendo of inhuman eululation, they stiffened and lay still, and Conan knew that they were dead. He stared down at the altar and the crystal shards. Four headless golden serpents still coiled about the altar, but no alien life now animated the dully gleaming metal. Karim Shah was rising slowly from his knees, whither he had been dashed by some unseen force. He shook his head to clear the ringing from his ears. Did you hear that crash when you struck? It was as if a thousand crystal panels shattered all over the castle as that globe burst. Were the souls of the wizards imprisoned in those golden balls? Ah! Conan wheeled as Karim Shah drew his sword and pointed. Another figure stood at the head

of his stare. His robe, too, was black, but of richly embroidered velvet, and there was a velvet cap on his head. His face was calm and not unhandsome. "'Who the devil are you?' demanded Conan, staring up at him, knife in hand. "'I am the master of Yem Shah.' His voice was like the chime of a temple bell, but a note of cruel mirth ran through it. Where is Yasminah? demanded Karim Shah. The master laughed down at him. What is that to you, dead man?

Have you so quickly forgotten my strength, once lent to you, that you come armed against me, you poor fool. I think I will take your heart, Karim Shah. He held up. his hand as if to receive something, and the Terranian cried out sharply, like a man in mortal agony. He reeled drunkenly, and then, with a splintering of bones, a rending of flesh and muscle, and a snapping of male links, his breast burst outward with a shower of blood, and through

the ghastly aperture something red and dripping shot through the air into the master's outstretched hand as a bit of steel leaps to the magnet. The Terranian slumped to the floor and lay motionless, and the master laughed and hurled the object to fall before Conan's feet, a still quivering human heart. With a roar and a curse Conan charged the stare. From Kim Sa's girdle he felt strength and deathless hate flow into him to combat the terrible emanation of power. that met him on the steps. The air filled with a shimmering, steely haze, through which he plunged like a swimmer, head lowered, left arm bent about his face, knife gripped low in his right hand.

His half-blinded eyes, glaring over the crook of his elbow, made out the hated shape of the sear before and above him. They outline wavering as a reflection wavers in disturbed water. He was wracked and torn by forces beyond his comprehension, but he felt a driving power outside and beyond his own, lifting him inexorably upward and onward, despite the wizard's strength and his own agony. Now he had reached the head of the stairs, and the master's face floated in the steely haze before him, and a strange fear shadowed the inscrutable eyes. Conan waited through the mist as through a surf, and his knife lunged upward like a live thing. The keen point ripped the master's robe as he sprang back with a low cry.

Then, before Conan's gaze, the wizard vanished, simply disappeared, like a burst bubble and something long and undulating darted up one of the smaller stairs that led up to the left and right from the landing. Conan charged after it, up the left-hand stare, uncertain as to just what he had seen, whip up those steps, but in a berserk mood that drowned the nausea and horror whispering at the back of his consciousness. He plunged out into a broad corridor whose uncarpeted floor and untapextried walls were of polished jade, and something long and swift whisked down the corridor ahead of him and into

a curtained door. From within the chamber rose a scream of urgent terror. The sound lent wings to Conan's flying feet, and he hurtled through the curtains and headlong into the chamber within. A frightful scene met his glare. Yasminah cowered on the farther edge of a velvet-covered dais, screaming her loathing and horror, an arm lifted as if to ward off attack, while before her swayed the hideous head of a giant serpent, shining neck, arcing up from dark, gleaming coils.

With a choked cry, Conan threw his knife. Instantly the monster whirled and was upon him like the rush of wind through tall grass. The long knife quivered in its neck, point and a foot of blade showing on one side and the hilt and a hand's breath of steel on the other, but it only seemed to madden the giant reptile. The great head towered above the man who faced it, and then darted down, the venom-dripping jaws gaping wide. But Conan had plucked a dagger from his girdle, and he stabbed upward as the head dipped down. The point tore through the lower jaw, and transfixed the upper, pinning them together. The next instant, the great trunk had looped itself about the Samarian as the snake unable to use

its fangs, employed its remaining form of attack. Conan's left arm was pinioned among the bone-crushing foals, but his right hand was free, bracing his feet to keep upright. He stretched forth his hand, gripped the hilt of the long knife jutting from the serpent's neck, and tore it free in a shower of blood. As if dividing his purpose with more than beastial intelligence, the snake writhed and knotted, seeking to cast its loops about his right arm. But with the speed of light, the long knife rose and fell,

shearing halfway through the reptile's giant trunk. Before he could strike again, the great pliant loops fell from him, and the monster dragged itself across the floor, gushing blood from its ghastly wounds. Conan sprang after it knife lifted, but his vicious swipe cut empty, air, as the serpent writhed away from him and struck its blunt nose against a paneled screen of sandalwood. One of the panels gave inward and the long, bleeding barrel whipped through it and was gone. Conan instantly attacked the screen.

A few blows rent it apart, and he glared into the dim alcove beyond. No horrific shape coil there. There was blood on the marble floor, and bloody tracks led to a cryptic arched door. Those tracks were of a man's bare feet. Conan! He wheeled back into the chamber just in time to catch the Devi of Vinya in his arms as she rushed across the room and threw herself upon him, catching him about the neck with a frantic clasp, half hysterical with terror and gratitude and relief. His wild blood had been stirred to its uttermost by all that has passed. He caught her

her to him in a grasp that would have made her wince at another time. She made no resistance. The Debbie was drowned in the elemental woman. She closed her eyes and drank in his fierce, hot, lawless kisses with all the abandon of passionate thirst. She was panting with his violence when he ceased for breath, and glared down at her, lying limp in his mighty arms. "'I knew you'd come for me.'

he murmured. You would not leave me in this den of devils?" At her words, recollection of their environment came to him suddenly. He lifted his head and listened intently. Silence reigned over the castle of Yingsha. But it was a silence impregnated with menace. Peril crouched in every corner, leered invisibly from every hanging. We'd better go while we can, he muttered.

those cuts were enough to kill any common beast or man but a wizard has a dozen lives wound one and he writhes away like a crippled snake to soak up fresh venom from some source of sorcery he picked up the girl and carrying her in his arms like a child he strode out into the gleaming jade corridor and down the stairs nerves tauntly alert for any sign or sound I met the master, she whispered, clinging to him and shuddering. He worked his spells on me to break my will. The most awful thing was a moldering corpse which seized me in its arms. I fainted then and lay as one dead. I do not know how long. Shortly after I regained consciousness, I heard sounds of strife below and cries,

and then that snake came slithering through the curtains. Oh, she shook at the memory of that horror. I knew somehow that it was not an illusion, but a real serpent that sought my life. It was not a shadow at least, answered Conan cryptically. You know he was beaten and chose to slay you rather than let you be rescued. What do you mean he? She asked uneasily, and then shrank against him, crying out and forgetting her question. She had seen the corpses at the foot of the stairs. Those of the seer were not

good to look at. Those of the seers were not good to look at as were not—those of the seers were not good to look at, as they lay twisted and contorted. Their hands and feet were exposed to view. And at the sight, Yasmina went livid and hid her face against Conan's powerful shoulder. End of Chapter 9. Chapter 10 of the People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard. This Libravox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 10, Yasmina and Conan.

Conan passed through the hall quickly enough, traversed the outer chamber, and approached the door that led upon the gallery. Then he saw the floor sprinkled with tiny littering shards. The crystal sheet that had covered the doorway had been shivered to bits, and he remembered the crash that had accompanied the shattering of the crystal globe. He believed that every piece of crystal in the castle had broken at that instant, and some dim instinct or memory of esoteric lure vaguely suggested the truth of the monstrous connection between the lords of the black circle and the golden pomegranates. He felt the short hair bristled chili of the back of his neck, and put the matter hastily

out of his mind. He breathed a deep sigh of relief as he stepped out upon the green jade gallery. There was still the gorge to cross, but at least he could see the white peaks glistening in the sun and the long slopes falling away into the distant blue hazes. The eroxi lay where he had fallen, an ugly blotch on the glassy sea. smoothness. As Conan strode down the winding path, he was surprised to note the position of the sun. It had not yet passed its zenith, and yet it seemed to him that hours had passed since he plunged into the castle of the Black Sears. He felt an urge to hasten,

not a mere blind panic, but an instinct of peril growing behind his back. He said nothing to Yasminah, and she seemed content to nestle her dark head against her. his arching breast and find security in the clasp of his iron arms. He paused an instant on the brink of the chasm frowning down. The haze which danced in the gorge was no longer rose-hued and sparkling. It was smoky, dim, ghostly, like the life-tide that flickered thinly in a wounded man. The thought came vaguely to Conan that the spells of magicians were more closely bound to their personal beings than were the actions of common men to the actress. But far below, the floor shone like tarnished silver, and the gold thread sparkled undimmed.

Kodan shifted Yasminah across his shoulder, where she lay, dossily, and began the descent. Hurriedly he descended the ramp, and hurriedly he fled across the echoing floor. He had a conviction that they were raised. seeing with time, that their chances of survival depended upon crossing that gorge of horrors before the wounded master of the castle should regain enough power to lose some other doom upon them. When he toiled up the farther ramp and came out upon the crest, he breathed a gusty sigh of relief, and stood Yasminah upon her feet. You walk from here, he told her, it's downhill all the way.

She stole a glance at the gleaming pyramid across the chasm. It reared up against the snowy slope like the citadel of silence and immemorial evil. Are you a magician that you have conquered the black seers of Yemshak, Conan of Gore? She asked, as they went down the path with his heavy arm about her supple waist. It was a girdle Kim Sa gave me before he died, Conan answered. Yes, I found him on the trail. it is a curious one which i'll show you when i have time against some spells it was weak but against others it was strong and a good knife is always a hearty incantation but if the girdle aided you in conquering the master she argued why did it not aid kimsa he shook his head who knows but kimsa had been the master's slave perhaps that weakened its magic he had no hold on me as he had on

Kamsa. Yet I can't say that I conquered him. He retreated, but I have a feeling that we haven't seen the last of him. I want to put as many miles between us and his lair as we can. He was further relieved to find horses tethered among the tamarisks as he had left them. He loosened them swiftly and mounted the black stallion, swinging the girl up before him. The others followed freshened by their rest. And what now? she asked. To have Kulistan? Not just now, he grinned hardly. Somebody, maybe the governor, killed my seven headmen.

My idiotic followers think I hit something to do with it, and unless I am able to convince them otherwise, they'll hunt me like a wounded jackal. Then what of me? If the headmen are dead, I am useless to you as a hostage. Will you slay me? to avenge them?" He looked down at her, with his eyes fiercely aglow, and laughed at the suggestion. Then let us ride to the border, she said.

You'll be safe from the Afghulis there. Yes, an Avignon give it. I am queen of Vinya, she reminded him with a touch of her old imperiousness. You have saved my life. You shall be rewarded. She did not intend it as it sounded, but he growled in his throat, ill-pleased. Keep your bounty for your city-bred dogs, princess.

If you're a queen of the plains, I'm a chief of the hills, and not one foot toward the border will I take you. But you would be safe, she began, bewilderedly. And you'd be the Debbie again, he broke in. No, girl. I prefer you as you are now, a woman of flesh and blood riding on my saddle-bow. But you can't keep me, she cried. You can't watch and see, he advised Grimling.

But I will pay you a vast ransom, devil take your ransom, he answered roughly, his arms hardening about her supple figure. The kingdom of Vinya could give me nothing I desire half so much as I desire you. I took you at the risk of my neck. If your courtiers went you back, let them come. come up the Zybar and fight for you." "'But you have no followers now,' she protested. "'You are hunted.

How can you preserve your own life, much less mine?' "'I still have friends in the hills,' he answered. "'There is a chief in the Karoxi who will keep you safely while I bicker with the F. Coolies. If they will have none of me by Kramm, I will ride northward with you to the steps of the Kozaki. I was a hitman among the free companions before I rode southward. I'll make you a queen on the Zaporosa River. But I cannot, she objected.

You must not hold me. If the idea is so repulsive, he demanded, why did you yield your lips to me so willingly? Even a queen is human, she answered, coloring. But because I am a queen, I must consider my kingdom. Do not carry me away into a queen. some foreign country. Come back to Vinya with me." "'Would you make me your king?' he asked sardonically.

"'Well, there are customs,' she stammered, and he interrupted her with a hard laugh. "'Yes, civilized customs that won't let you do as you wish. You marry some withered old king of the plains, and I can go my way with only the memory of a few kisses snatched from your lips. Ah! But I must return to my kingdom," she repeated helplessly. Why? he demanded angrily. To chafe your rump on gold thrones and listen to the plaudits of smirking velvet-skirted

fools? Where is the gain? Listen, I was born in the Samarian hills, where the people are all barbarians. I have been a mercenary soldier, a corsair, a Cossack, and a hundred other things. What king has roamed the countries, fought the battles, loved the women, and won the plunder that I have. I came into Goulistan to raise a horde and plunder the kingdoms to the south, your own among them.

Being chief of the Avgouli's was only a start. If I can conciliate them, I'll have a dozen tribes following me within a year. but if i can't i'll ride back to the steps and loot the terranian borders with the kossacki and you'll go with me to the devil with your kingdom they fended for themselves before you were born she lay in his arms looking up at him and she felt a tug at her spirit a lawless reckless urge that matched his own and was by it called into being but a thousand generations of sovereignty rode heaven upon her. I can't, I can't, she repeated helplessly. You haven't any choice, he assured her. You—what the devil?

They had left Yim Shah some miles behind them and were riding along a high ridge that separated two deep valleys. They had just topped a steep crest where they could gaze down into the valley on their right hand. And there was a running fight in progress. A strong wind was blowing away from them, carrying the sound from their ears, but even so the clashing of steel and thunder of hooves welled up from far below. They saw the glint of the sun on Lance Tip and spired helmet.

Three thousand mailed horsemen were driving before them, a ragged band of turbanded riders, who fled snorling and striking like fleeing wolves. Terranians, muttered Conan. Squadrons from Secundaram? What the devil are they doing here?" "'Who are the men they pursue?' asked Yasmina. "'And why do they fall back so stubbornly? They cannot stand against such odds.'

"'Five hundred of my mad of goolies,' he growled, scowling down into the veil. "'They're in a trap, and they know it.' The valley was indeed a cul-de-sac at that end. It narrowed to a high-walled gorge, opening out farther into a round bowl, completely trimmed with lofty, unscalable walls. The turbanded riders were being forced into this gorge, because there was nowhere else for them to go, and they went reluctantly, in a shower of arrows and a whirl of swords. The helmeted riders harried them, but did not press in, too, rashly.

They knew the desperate fury of the hill tribes, and they knew, too, that they had their prey in a trap from which there was no escape. They had recognized the hill men as Afghoulis, and they wished to him the men in force a surrender. They needed hostages for the purpose they had in mind. The emir was a man of decision and initiative. When he reached the Garasha Valley and found neither guides and our emissary waiting for him,

he pushed on, trusting to his own knowledge of the country, all the way from Secunderah, there had been fighting, and tribesmen were licking their wounds in many a crag-perched village. He knew there was a good chance that neither he nor any of his helmeted spearmen would ever ride through the gates of Secunderam again, or the tribes would all be up behind him now. But he was determined to carry out his orders, which were to take Yasmina Debbie from the upculis at all cost, and to bring her captive to Secunderam, or if confronted by impover

possibility, to strike off her head before he himself died. Of all this, of course, the watchers on the ridge were not aware, but Conan fidgeted with nervousness. Why the devil did they get themselves trapped? he demanded of the universe at large. I know what they're doing in these parts. They were hunting me, the dogs, poking into every valley and found themselves pinned in before they knew it. The poor fools. They're making a stand in the gorge, but they can't hold out for long. When the Terranians have pushed them back into the bowl, they'll slaughter them at their leisure. The den, welling up from below, increased in volume and intensity.

In the straight of the narrow gut, the Apgouli's fighting desperately, were for the time holding their own against the mailed riders, who could not throw their whole weight against them. Conan scowled darkly, moved restlessly, fingering his hilt, and finally spoke bluntly. "'Devie, I must go down to them. I'll find a place for you to hide until I come back.' "'You spoke of your kingdom. Well, I don't pretend to look on those hairy devils as my children, but after all, such as they are. They're my henchmen. A chief should never desert his followers,

even if they desert him first. They think they were right in kicking me out. Hell, I won't be cast off. I'm still chief of the Abghulies, and I'll prove it. I can climb down on foot into the gorge. But what of me? she queried. You carried me away forcibly from my people. Now will you leave me to die in the hills alone while you go down and sacrifice yourself uselessly? His veins swelled with the conflict of his emotions.

That's right, he muttered helplessly. Grom knows what I can do. She turned her head slightly, a curious expression dawning on her beautiful face, then, Listen, she cried, listen. A distant fanfare of trumpets was borne faintly to their ears. They stared into the deep valley on the left and caught a glint of steel on the farther side. A long line of lances and polished helmets moved along the veil, gleaming in the sunlight. The riders of vineyard.

She cried exultingly. There are thousands of them, muttered Conan. It has been long since a Kashatria host has written this far into the hills. They're searching for me, she exclaimed. Give me your horse. I will ride to my warriors. The ridge is not so precipitous on the left, and I can reach the valley floor. I will lead my horsemen into the valley at the upper end and fall upon the Terranians.

We will crush them in the vice. Quick, Conan. Will you sacrifice your men to your own desire? The burning hunger of the steps and the wintry forests glared out of his eyes, but he shook his head and swung off the stallion, placing the reins in her hands. You win, he grunted, ride like the devil. She wheeled away down the left-hand slope, and he ran swiftly along the ridge until he reached the long, ragged cleft

that was the defile in which the fight race. Down the rugged wall he scrambled like an ape, clinging to projections and crevices, to fall at last, feet first, into the melee that raged in the mouth of the gorge. Blades were wickering and clanging about him, horses rearing and stamping, helmet plumes nodding among turbans that were stained crimson. As he hit, he yelled like a wolf, caught a gold-worked rain, and dodged the sweep of a cemetery, his long knife upward through the rider's vitals. In another instant he was in the saddle, yelling ferocious orders to the Foulius.

They stared at him stupidly for an instant. Then as they saw the havoc his steel was wrecking among their enemies, they fell to their work again, accepting him without comment. In that inferno of licking blades and spurting blood, there was no time to ask or answer questions. The riders in their spired helmets and gold-worked halberts, swarmed about the gorgemouth, thrusting and slashing, and the narrow defile was packed and jammed with horses and men. The warriors crushed breast to breast, stabbing with shortened blades, slashing murderously where there was an instant's room to swing a sword.

When a man went down he did not get up from beneath the stamping, swirling hoofs. and sheer strength counted heavily here, and the chief of the Apkolis did the work of ten. At such times accustomed habits sway men strongly, and the warriors, who were used to seeing Conan in their vanguard, were heartened mightily, despite their distrust of him. But superior numbers counted, too. The pressure of the men behind forced the horsemen of Toran deeper and deeper into the gorge in the teeth of the flickering tool-wars.

by foot, the Fouli's were shoved back, leaving the defile floor carpeted with dead on which the riders trampled. As he hacked and smote like a man possessed, Conan had time for some chilling doubts. Would Yasminah keep her word? She had but to join her warriors, turn southward, and leave him and his band to perish. But at last, after what seemed centuries of desperate battling, in the valley outside there arose another sound above the clash of steel and yells of slaughter. And then, with a burst of trumpets that shook the walls and rushing thunder of hoofs, five thousand riders of

vinyas smoked the hosts of Secundaram. That stroke split the Terranian squadrons asunder, scattered tour and rent them, and scattered their fragments all over the valley. In an instant the surge had ebbed back out of the gorge. There was a chaotic. like confused, swirl of fighting, horsemen wheeling and smiting singly and in clusters. And then the emir went down with a Kishatria lance through his breast. And the riders, in their spired helmets, turned their horses down the valley, spurring like mad and seeking to slash away through the swarms which had come upon them from the rear.

As they scattered in flight, the conquerors scattered in pursuit, and all across the valley floor and up on the slopes near the mouth and over the crests, streamed the fugitives and the pursuers. V.F. Gullies, those left to ride, rushed out of the gorge and joined in the harrying of their foes, accepting the unexpected alliance as unquestioningly as they had accepted the return of their repudiated chief. The sun was sinking toward the distant crags when Conan, his garments hacked to tatters, and the mail under them reeking and clotted with blood.

His knife dripping encrusted to the hilt, strode over the corpses to where Yasmina Devi sat her horse among her nobles on the crest of the ridge near a lofty precipice. "'You kept your word, Debbie,' he roared. "'By crumb, though, I had some bad suckings down in that gorge. Look out!' Down from the sky swooped a vulture of tremendous sighs, with a thunder of wings that knocked men sprawling from their horses. The scimitar-like beak was slashing for the Debbie's soft neck, but Conan was quicker,

a short run, a tigerish leap, the savage thrust of a dripping knife, and the vulture voiced a horribly human cry, pitched sideways and went tumbling down the cliffs to the rocks and river a thousand feet below. As it dropped, its black wings thrashing the air, it took on the semblance, not of a bird, but of a black-robed human body that fell arms in wide black sleeves thrown abroad. Conan turned to Yasminah, his red knife still in his hand, his blue eyes smoldering, blood oozing from wounds on his thickly muscled arms and thighs. You are the Debbie again, he said, grinning fiercely at the gold-clasped Gossaba robe

she had dawned over her hill-girl attire, and awed not at all by the imposing array of shivery about him. I have you to thank for the lives of some three hundred and fifty of my rogues, who are at least convinced that I didn't betray them. You have put my hands on the reins of conquest again. I still owe you, my ransom, she said, her dark eyes glowing as they swept over him. Ten thousand pieces of gold I will pay you. He made a savage, impatient gesture, shook the blood from his knife and thrust it back in its

scabbard, wiping his hands on his mail. I will collect your ransom in my own way at my own time, he said. I will collect it at your palace in Ayoye, and I will come with fifty thousand men to see that the scales are fair. She laughed, gathering her reins into her hands, and I will meet you on the shores of the Jumda with a hundred thousand. His eyes shone with fierce appreciation and admiration, and stepping back, he lifted his hand with a gesture that was like the assumption of kingship, indicating that her road

was clear before her. End of Chapter X. End of The People of the Black Circle by Robert E. Howard.