Conan Compilation - The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian Part 9

"There was something in the Temple he wished to examine."

"But why should he come here alone, and in so much secrecy?"

"Because it was not his property. It arrived in a caravan from the south, at dawn. The men of the caravan knew nothing of it, except that it had been placed with them by the men of a caravan from Stygia, and was meant for Kalanthes of Hanumar, priest of Ibis. The master of the caravan had been paid by these other men to deliver it directly to Kalanthes, but he's a rascal by nature, and wished to proceed directly to Aquilonia, on the road to which Hanumar does not lie. So he asked if he might leave it in the Temple until Kalanthes could send for it.

"Kallian agreed, and told him he himself would send a runner to inform Kalanthes. But after the men had gone, and I spoke of the runner, Kallian forbade me to send him. He sat brooding over what the men had left."

"And what was that?"

"A sort of sarcophagus, such as is found in ancient Stygian tombs, but this one was round, like a covered metal bowl. Its composition was something like copper, but much harder, and it was carved with hieroglyphics, like those found on the more ancient menhirs in southern Stygia.

The lid was made fast to the body by carven copper-like bands."

"What was in it?"

"The men of the caravan did not know. They only said that the men who gave it to them told them that it was a priceless relic, found among the tombs far beneath the pyramids and sent to Kalanthes, 'because of the love the sender bore the priest of Ibis.' Kallian Publico believed that it contained the diadem of the giant-kings, of the people who dwelt in that dark land before the ancestors of the Stygians came there. He showed me a design carved on the lid, which he swore was the shape of the diadem which legend tells us the monster-kings wore.

"He determined to open the Bowl and see what it contained. He was like a madman when he thought of the fabled diadem, which myths say was set with the strange jewels known only to that ancient race, a single one of which is worth more than all the jewels of the modern world.

"I warned him against it. But he stayed at my house as I have said, and a short time before57.midnight, he came alone to the Temple, hiding in the shadows until the watchman had pa.s.sed to the other side of the building, then letting himself in with his belt-key. I watched him from the shadows of the silk shop, saw him enter the Temple, and then returned to my own house. If the diadem was in the Bowl, or anything else of great value, he intended hiding it somewhere in the Temple and slipping out again. Then on the morrow he would raise a great hue and cry, saying that thieves had broken into his house and stolen Kalanthes' property. None would know of his prowlings but the charioteer and I, and neither of us would betray him."

"But the watchman?" objected Demetrio.

"Kallian did not intend being seen by him; he planned to have him crucified as an accomplice of the thieves," answered Promero. Arus gulped and turned pale as this duplicity of his employer came home to him.

"Where is this sarcophagus?" asked Demetrio. Promero pointed, and the Inquisitor grunted.

"So! The very room in which Kallian must have been attacked."

Promero turned pale and twisted his thin hands.

"Why should a man in Stygia send Kalanthes a gift? Ancient G.o.ds and queer mummies have come up the caravan roads before, but who loves the priest of Ibis so well in Stygia, where they still wors.h.i.+p the arch-demon Set who coils among the tombs in the darkness? The G.o.d Ibis has fought Set since the first dawn of the earth, and Kalanthes has fought Set's priests all his life.

There is something dark and hidden here."

"Show us this sarcophagus," commanded Demetrio, and Promero hesitantly led the way. All followed, including Conan, who was apparently heedless of the wary eye the guardsmen kept on him, and seemed merely curious. They pa.s.sed through the torn hangings and entered the room, which was rather more dimly lighted than the corridor. Doors on each side gave into other chambers, and the walls were lined with fantastic images, G.o.ds of strange lands and far peoples. And Promero cried out sharply.

"Look! The Bowl! It's open and empty!"

In the center of the room stood a strange black cylinder, nearly four feet in height, and perhaps three feet in diameter at its widest circ.u.mference, which was half-way between the top and bottom. The heavy carven lid lay on the floor, and beside it a hammer and a chisel. Demetrio looked inside, puzzled an instant over the dim hieroglyphs, and turned to Conan.

"Is this what you came to steal?"58.

The barbarian shook his head.

"How could I bear it away? It is too big for one man to carry."

"The bands were cut with this chisel," mused Demetrio, "and in haste. There are marks where misstrokes of the hammer dinted the metal. We may a.s.sume that Kallian opened the Bowl.

Some one was hiding nearby possibly in the hangings in the doorway. When Kallian had the Bowl open, the murderer sprang on him or he might have killed Kallian and opened the Bowl himself."

"This is a grisly thing," shuddered the clerk. "It's too ancient to be holy. Who ever saw metal like it in a sane world? It seems less destructible than Aquilonian steel, yet see how it is corroded and eaten away in spots. Look at the bits of black mold clinging in the grooves of the hieroglyphics; they smell as earth smells from far below the surface. And look here on the lid!" The clerk pointed with a shaky finger. "What would you say it is?"

Demetrio bent closer to the carven design.

"I'd say it represents a crown of some sort," he grunted.

"No!" exclaimed Promero. "I warned Kallian, but he would not believe me! It is a scaled serpent coiled with its tail in its mouth. It is the sign of Set, the Old Serpent, the G.o.d of the Stygians! This Bowl is too old for a human world it is a relic of the time when Set walked the earth in the form of a man! The race which sprang from his loins laid the bones of their kings away in such cases as these, perhaps!"

"And you'll say that those moldering bones rose up and strangled Kallian Publico and then walked away, perhaps," derided Demetrio.

"It was no man who was laid to rest in that bowl," whispered the clerk, his eyes wide and staring. "What human could lie in it?"

Demetrio swore disgustedly.

"If Conan is not the murderer," he snapped, "the slayer is still somewhere in this building.

Dionus, and Arus, remain here with me, and you three prisoners stay here too. The rest of you search the house. The murderer could only have escaped if he got away before Arus found the body by the way Conan used in entering, and in that case the barbarian would have seen him, if he's telling the truth."

"I saw no one but this dog," growled Conan, indicating Arus.59.

"Of course not, because you're the murderer," said Dionus. "We're wasting time, but we'll search the house as a formality. And if we find no one, I promise you shall burn! Remember the law, my black-haired savage you go to the mines for killing a commoner, you hang for killing a tradesman, and for murdering a rich man, you burn!"

Conan answered with a wicked lift of his lip, baring his teeth, and the men began their search.

The listeners in the chamber heard them stamping upstairs and down, moving objects, opening doors and bellowing to one another through the rooms.

"Conan," said Demetrio, "you know what it means if they find no one?"

"I didn't kill him," snarled the Cimmerian. "If he had sought to hinder me I'd have split his skull. But I did not see him until I saw his corpse."

"I know that some one sent you here tonight, to steal at least," said Demetrio. "By your silence you incriminate yourself in this murder as well. You had best speak. The mere fact of your being here is sufficient to send you to the mines for ten years, anyhow, whether you admit your guilt or not. But if you tell the whole tale, you may save yourself from the stake."

"Well," answered the barbarian grudgingly, "I came here to steal the Zamorian diamond goblet. A man gave me a diagram of the Temple and told me where to look for it. It is kept in that room," Conan pointed, "in a niche in the floor under a copper Shemitish G.o.d."

"He speaks truth there," said Promero. "I'd thought that not half a dozen men in the world knew the secret of that hiding place."

"And if you had secured it," asked Dionus sneeringly, "would you really have taken it to the man who hired you? Or would you have kept it for yourself?"

Again the smoldering eyes flashed resentment.

"I am no dog," the barbarian muttered. "I keep my word."

"Who sent you here?" Demetrio demanded, but Conan kept a sullen silence.

The guardsmen were straggling back from their search.

"There's no man hiding in this house," they growled. "We've ransacked the place. We found the trap-door in the roof through which the barbarian entered, and the bolt he cut in half. A man escaping that way would have been seen by the guards we posted about the building, unless he60.fled before we came. Then, besides, he would have had to stack tables or chairs or cases upon each other to reach it from below, and that has not been done. Why couldn't he have gone out the front door just before Arus came around the building?"

"Because the door was bolted on the inside, and the only keys which will work that bolt are the one belonging to Arus and the one which still hangs on the girdle of Kallian Publico."

"I've found the cable the murderer used," one of them announced. "A black cable, thicker than a man's arm, and curiously splotched."

"Then where is it, fool?" exclaimed Dionus.

"In the chamber adjoining this one," answered the guard. "It's wrapped about a marble pillar, where no doubt the murderer thought it would be safe from detection. I couldn't reach it. But it must be the right one."