Conan the Buccaneer

Chapter Eight: THE COBRA CROWN

Zarono raved and fumed when he returned to the Petrel and learned that Chabela was missing. The sailors who had been standing watch on the poop deck and outside Chabela's cabin were keelhauled at his command.

Before dawn the next day, he brought all but a few of his men ashore again.

The day was spent in combing the island for the missing princess, who was an essential element in his plans. A few wisps of fabric torn from her gown were discovered; but these, while they testified to her having been there, shed no light on her present whereabouts.

The men also discovered the remains of Sigurd's camp. Of the Barachan pirates themselves, however, there was no trace.

At sunset a baffled Zarono, more furious than ever, returned to the Petrel.

"Menkara!" he shouted.

"Aye, Captain Zarono?"

"If your witcheries be good for aught, now's the time for them. Show me whither this damnable chit has fled!"

Soon afterwards, Zarono sat in his cabin and watched the Stygian set up his apparatus for the spell he had worked in Duke Villagro's dungeon. The brazier hissed; the sorcerer chanted:

"Lao,Setesh…"

The jade-green cloud of smoke condensed, and in the cloud a seascape took form.

It showed a calm sea, in the midst of which lay a lean, graceful carack with all sails set. But the sails hung limply from the yards, while the ship rocked gently on smooth, oily swells.

"Conan's Wastrel, becalmed," said Zarono when the vision had dissolved. "But where?"

Menkara spread his hands. "I'm sorry, but my art does not tel me. If the sun were still visible, I could at least tell you in what direction they are headed. As it is I …''

"You mean," snarled Zarono, "that they could be anywhere over the horizon, but you have no way of telling whither?"

"I am not the great Thoth-Amon. What I can, I do."

"Could you see if the girl was aboard?"

"Nay, but I am sure she was, or the vision would not have shown the ship. Doubtless she sleeps in one of the cabins."

"I should have taken my pleasure of the drab whilst I had the chance," growled Zarono. "But what's to do now?"

"Well, the Wastrel might be bound for the coast of Kush; but more likely she is headed back for Kordava. Your Captain Conan would hasten to return the princess to Kordava in hope of a rich reward from the long."

"If we crack on sail to northward, could we overtake them?"

"I think not. The ocean is too wide, and a calm that halts Conan's ship would also halt yours. They might sail northeast, to make landfall on the coast of Shem and seek aid of the king's brother Tovarro. We have no way of knowing. But you forget our main purpose."

"The wench and the treasure were the main purpose!"

"Nay, I speak of the great Thoth-Amon. Once we enlist his aid, it matters not whether the princess be returned to her father, or whether she fetches home her uncle. The prince of sorcerers can control the lot as easily as a puppet-master jerks the strings of his marionettes. Let us sail northeastward to the Stygian coast. If on the way we overhaul Conan's ship, well and good; if not, it will not matter."

From the Stygian coast, Zarono and Menkara took passage overland by caravan.

Half the crew were left behind to guard the Petrel, while the other half, armed to the teeth, came with their captain. The passage cost Zarono good gold, which much grieved the Zingaran's larcenous heart.

Like most seamen, Zarono was uncomfortable on land. He felt out of his element and vaguely helpless. While a desert may be the closest earthly analogue to the sea, it was still foreign to him. He liked neither the rhythmically lurching gait of the ill-tempered camel nor the dry desert air, which sucked every drop of moisture from his gullet.

These discomforts, however, he must needs endure. And by the third day, the Oasis of Khajar became visible on the horizon. It was a dark and lonely clump of motionless palms, ringed about a strange black pool. Amidst the foliage, the outline of a massive edifice could be espied.

They approached the oasis with caution. Menkara rode in front, so that his garments, denoting him as a priest of Set, should be visible to any watching eye.

Quiet hung over the oasis. No birds paddled about the pool or fluttered and squawked in the palms. No sentinel challenged them. At the edge of the oasis they halted. On command, the camels lay down, a joint at a time, perilously tilting their passengers. Zarono told the boatswain:

"Keep your eye on the camel drivers. The dogs are frightened, and they might try to flee and leave us stranded."

Then Zarono and Menkara set out afoot, around the edge of the sullen black pool, toward the massive building in the background. Zarono did not like the look of the pool. Black as liquid coal, it glistened in the bright afternoon light. Oily colors coiled on its motionless surface, slowly writhing with a semblance of life. To one side stood a block of reddish stone, resembling an altar. Dark, rusty stains besmeared the top and sides of the altar. Zarono, whose vices were merely the normal ones, paled and shuddered at the thought of what might arise betimes from the black mirror of the pool to consume the victims of the altar.

They skirted the sinister pool and approached Thoth-Amon's abode. As the palms opened out before them, they saw that this edifice was, like the altar, made of massive blocks of red sandstone. It was a large structure, better called a palace than a mere house. The surface and edges of the stone were worn, testifying to great age.

What lost age had reared this huge pile, none could say. The glyphs carved in the arch over the doorway were unlike any that Zarono had seen in his wide travels. The design of the building was severely plain. Zarono found it hard to relate it to any known architectural style, save perhaps the massive pyramids that rose from the desert near Khemi. The effect was less that of a dwelling than that of a tomb.

The black doorway gaped like a yawning mouth in the hulking, brutal mass of sandstone. Menkara strode without pause up to those stone jaws and traced a cryptic sign in the air. Zarono, with a twinge of awe, saw that the sign glowed lines of green fire in the air for some moments after that bony finger had traced it.

Within, all was dark stone and echoing silence. There was no sign of any guards or servants. Menkara strode confidently forward, and Zarono could only follow.

Beyond the antechamber, a flight of stone steps, worn into smooth curves by many ages of sandaled feet, led down into darkness. Down below the level of die desert they descended, until they came at last to a level space. Advancing, they emerged into a hall.

Here was light … a sinister green glow from serpentine torches of polished copper. By the flickering emerald luminescence, Zarono could see that the hall was lined with two rows of huge, monolithic columns, graven with cryptic glyphs of the same kind that he had seen over the outer doorway. At the end of the column-lined hall, a man sat on a throne of black, glittering stone. As the two travelers approached, the man became clear to Zarono's sight.

The man was a dusky giant, with broad shoulders and aloof, hawklike features.

From his shaven skull to his sandaled feet, his skin was a deep, rich brown.

Black eyes glittered hypnotically from the depths of cavernous eye-sockets. He wore a simple white linen robe. The only ornament to be seen on his person was a copper-colored ring, in the form of a serpent that, making three turns around one finger of a muscular hand, held its tail in its jaws.

In a flash of insight, Zarono, from the severe plainness of the building and from the lack of adornment of the mighty sorcerer, divined something of the inner nature of Thoth-Amon. Here was a man to who material possessions and showy gauds meant nothing. His passion was for something intangible … for power over his fellow men.

As they halted a few paces from the throne, the man spoke in a strong, clear voice: "Greetings, Menkara, little brother!"

Menkara sank to all fours and touched his forehead to the black flagstones. "In the name of Father Set, dread lord," he whispered, "I am come."

The disquieting thought came to Zarono that even the priest was frightened.

Zarono found himself sweating despite the dryness of the desert air.

"Who is this black-visaged Zingaran whom you have brought to my place?" queried Thoth-Amon.

"Captain Zarono, a buccaneer, dread lord: an emissary from Villagro, duke of Kordava."

The cold, serpentine eyes leisurely looked Zarono up and down. Zarono had the feeling that the intelligence behind that ophidian gaze was so far removed from earthly considerations that the doings of men were all but alien to it.

"And what have I to do with Zingara, or Zingara with me?" asked Thoth-Amon.

Menkara opened his mouth, but Zarono decided that it was time to assert himself.

With a boldness that he did not truly feel, he stepped forward, dropped to one knee before the throne, and drew from his doublet the parchment scroll that was Villagro's letter. This he handed to Thoth-Amon, who took it with his copper-ringed hand and dropped it in his lap.

"Mightiest of magicians," he began, "I bring you familial greeting from the lord duke of Kordava, who salutes you and offers rich gifts in return for some slight service, which this missive will explain."

Thoth-Amon did not unroll the letter; he seemed to know its contents already. He mused for a time.

'' 'Twere near to my heart to trample the accursed cult of Mitra into the slime and raise up the worship of our Father Set," he murmured. "But I am occupied with mighty magical operations, and Villagro's gold means little to me."

"That is not all, dread lord," said Menkara, drawing the Book of Skelos from under his robe. "In tender of the duke's good will, we beg you to receive this gift from our hands." He laid the ancient tome at Thoth-Amon's feet.

Thoth-Amon snapped his fingers, and the book rose into the air and settled gently, open, on the sorcerer's lap. The wizard-priest idly turned a few pages.

"A rare gift, in sooth," he said. "I had not thought a third copy yet existed; or have you rifled the royal librarium of Aquilonia?"

"Nay, dread lord," quoth Menkara. "A chance find, this, on the Nameless Isle that lies in the western Sea…"

His voice trailed off, for the figure of the somber giant before them had suddenly grown tense. Cold fires leapt up in those snaky black eyes. The air seemed cold, and a sense of peril sprang up in Zarono. He caught his breath; had they done something to anger the great magician?

"Bore you away aught else from the altar of Tsathoggua the Toad-god?" said Thoth-Amon in a soft voice like a sword sliding from its sheath.

Menkara quailed. "Naught else, dread lord, save a sack or two of gems…"

"Which lay before the altar upon the book, did they not?"

Menkara nodded, trembling.

Thoth-Amon rose to his feet, and hellish fires blazed in his black eyes. The room seemed to blaze with green fire, and the pavement quaked as at the step of a giant. The magician spoke in a voice of thunder:

"You crawling worms! By such fools am I, Thoth-Amon, served! Set, mighty father, give me men of keener wit for slaves! A kan-phog, yaa.''

"Mighty one! Prince of magicians! How have we angered you?" wailed Menkara, groveling.

The grim gaze of the mighty Stygian swept down upon the pair in deadly wrath.

His thunderous voice sank to a serpent's hiss.

"Know, fools, that there was hidden beneath the idol that whose worth the entire wealth of the earth cannot equal, compared to which the Book of Skelos is worth no more than a shopkeeper's tally sheet! I speak of the Cobra Crown!"

Zarono gasped. He had dimly heard of this sacred talisman of the serpent-men of Valusia … the most potent sorcerous sigil the earth had ever borne … the all-commanding crown of the serpent-kings, wherewith they had, in pre-human ages, gained the empire of the earth. And they had taken the book and the gems, leaving the supreme treasure behind!