The Curse Of The Monolith

1.

The sheer cliffs of dark stone closed about Conan the Cimmerian like the sides of a trap. HE did not like the way their jagged peaks loomed against the few faint stars, which glittered like the eyes of spiders down upon the small camp on the flat floor of the valley. Neither did he like the chill, uneasy wind that whistled across the stony heights and prowled about the campfire. It caused the flames to lean and flicker, sending monstrous black shadows writhing across the rough stone walls of the nearer valley side.

On the other side of the camp, colossal redwoods, which had been old when Atlantis sank beneath the waves eight thousand years before, rose amid thickets of bamboo and clumps of rhododendron. A small stream meandered out of the woods, murmured past the camp, and wandered off into the forest again. Overhead, a layer of haze or high fog drifted across the tops of the cliffs, drowning the light of the fainter stars and making the brighter ones seem to weep.

Something about this place, thought Conan, stank of fear and of death. HE could almost smell the acrid odor of terror on the breeze. The horses felt it too. They nickered plaintively, pawed the earth, and rolled white eyeballs at the dark beyond the circle of the fire. So was Conan, the barbarian warrior from the bleak hills of Cimmeria. Like his, their senses were more delicately turned to the aura of evil than were the senses of city-bred men like the Turanian troopers he had led into this deserted vale.

The soldiers sat about the fire, sharing the last of this night’s ration of wine from goatskin bags. Some laughed and boasted of the amorous feats they would do in the silken bagnios of Aghrapur upon their return. Others, weary from a long day’s hard ride, sat silently, staring at the fire and yawning. Soon they would settle down for the night, rolled in their heavy cloaks. With their heads pillowed on saddlebags, they would lie in a loose circle about the hissing fire, while two of their number stood guard with their powerful Hyrkanian bows strung and ready. They sensed nothing of the sinister force that hovered about the valley.

Standing with his back to the nearest of the giant redwoods, Conan wrapped his cloak more closely about him against the dank breeze from the heights. Although his troopers were well-built men of good size, he towered half a head over the tallest of them, while his enormous breadth of shoulder made them seem puny by comparison. His square-cut black mane escaped from below the edges of his spired, turban-wound helmet, and the deepset blue eyes in his dark, scarred face caught glints of red from the firelight.

Sunk in one of his fits of melancholy gloom, Conan silently cursed King Yildiz, the well-meaning but weak Turanian monarch who had sent him on this ill-omened mission. Over a year had passed since he had taken the oath of allegiance to the king of Turan. Six months before, he had been lucky enough to earn this king’s favor; with the help of a fellow-mercenary, Juma the Kushite, he had rescued Yildiz’s daughter Zosara from the mad god-king of Meru. HE had brought the princess, more or less intact, to her affianced bridegroom, Khan Kujala of the nomadic Kuigar horde.

When Conan returned to Yildiz’s glittering capital of Aghrapur, he had found the monarch generous enough in his gratitude. Both he and Juma had been raised to captain. But, whereas Juma had obtained a coveted post in the Royal Guard, Conan had been rewarded with yet another arduous, perilous mission. Now, as he recalled these events, he sourly contemplated the fruits of success.

Yildiz had entrusted the Cimmerian giant with a letter to King Shu of Kusan, a minor kingdom in western Khitai. At the head of forty veterans, Conan had accomplished the immense journey. He had traversed hundreds of leagues of bleak Hyrkanian steppe and skirted the foothills of the towering Talakma Mountains. He had threaded his way through the windy deserts and swampy jungles bordering the mysterious realm of Khitai, the easternmost land of which the men of the West had heard.

Arrived in Kusan at last, Conan had found the venerable and philosophical King Shu a splendid host. While Conan and his warriors were plied with exotic food and drink and furnished with willing concubines, the king and his advisers decided to accepts King Yildiz’s offer of a treaty of friendship and trade. So the wise old king had handed Conan a gorgeous scroll of gilded silk. Thereon were inscribed, in the writhing ideographs of Khitai and the gracefully slanted characters of Hyrkania, the formal replies and felicitations of the Khitan king.

Besides a silken purse full of Khitan gold, King Shu had also furnished Conan with a high noble of his court, to guide them as far as the western borders of Khitai. But Conan had not liked this guide, this Duke Feng.

The Khitan was a slim, dainty, foppish little man with a soft, lisping voice. He wore fantastical silken garments, unsuited to rugged riding and camping, and drenched his exquisite person in heavy perfume. He never soiled his soft, long-nailed hands with any of the camp chores, but instead kept his two servants busy day and night ministering to his comfort and dignity.

Conan looked down upon the Khitan’s habits with a bard-bitten barbarian’s manly contempt. The duke’s slanting black eyes and purring voice reminded him of a cat, and he often told himself to watch this little princeling for treachery. On the other hand, he secretly envied the Khitan his exquisitely cultivated manners and easy charm. This fact led Conan to resent the duke even more; for, although his Turanian service had given Conan some slight polish, he was still at heart the blunt, boorish young barbarian. He would have to be careful of this sly little Duke Feng.