Into the bloodshot eyes came a gleam of recognition, and the froth-smeared lips parted. From them issued a racking whimper in the Kothic tongue.
‘Is this death, then? Is the long agony ended? For this is King Conan who died at Valkia, and I am among the dead.’
‘You’re not dead,’ said Conan. ‘But you’re dying. You’ll be tortured no more. I’ll see to that. But I can’t help you further. Yet before you die, tell me how to open your iron box!’
‘My iron box,’ mumbled Zorathus in delirious disjointed phrases. ‘The chest forged in unholy fires among the flaming mountains of Khrosha; the metal no chisel can cut. How many treasures has it borne, across the width and the breadth of the world! But no such treasure as it now holds.’
‘Tell me how to open it,’ urged Conan. ‘It can do you no good, and it may aid me.’
‘Aye, you are Conan,’ muttered the Kothian. ‘I have seen you sitting on your throne in the great public hall of Tarantia, with your crown on your head and the scepter in your hand. But you are dead; you died at Valkia. And so I know my own end is at hand.’
‘What does the dog say?’ demanded Valbroso impatiently, not understanding Kothic. ‘Will he tell us how to open the box?’
As if the voice roused a spark of life in the twisted breast Zorathus rolled his bloodshot eyes toward the speaker.
‘Only Valbroso will I tell,’ he gasped in Zingaran. ‘Death is upon me. Lean close to me, Valbroso!’
The count did so, his dark face lit with avarice; behind him his saturnine captain, Beloso, crowded closer.
‘Press the seven skulls on the rim, one after another,’ gasped Zorathus. ‘Press then the head of the dragon that writhes across the lid. Then press the sphere in the dragon’s claws. That will release the secret catch.’
‘Quick, the box!’ cried Valbroso with an oath.
Conan lifted it and set it on a dais, and Valbroso shouldered him aside.
‘Let me open it!’ cried Beloso, starting forward.
Valbroso cursed him back, his greed blazing in his black eyes.
‘None but me shall open it!’ he cried.
Conan, whose hand had instinctively gone to his hilt, glanced at Zorathus. The man’s eyes were glazed and bloodshot, but they were fixed on Valbroso with burning intensity; and was there the shadow of a grim twisted smile on the dying man’s lips? Not until the merchant knew he was dying had he given up the secret. Conan turned to watch Valbroso, even as the dying man watched him.
Along the rim of the lid seven skulls were carved among intertwining branches of strange trees. An inlaid dragon writhed its way across the top of the lid amid ornate arabesques. Valbroso pressed the skulls in fumbling haste, and as he jammed his thumb down on the carved head of the dragon he swore sharply and snatched his hand away, shaking it in irritation.
‘A sharp point on the carvings,’ he snarled. ‘I’ve pricked my thumb.’
He pressed the gold ball clutched in the dragon’s talons, and the lid flew abruptly open. Their eyes were dazzled by a golden flame. It seemed to their dazed minds that the carven box was full of glowing fire that spilled over the rim and dripped through the air in quivering flakes. Beloso cried out and Valbroso sucked in his breath. Conan stood speechless, his brain snared by the blaze.
‘Mitra, what a jewel!’ Valbroso’s hand dived into the chest, came out with a great pulsing crimson sphere that filled the room with a lambent glow. In its glare Valbroso looked like a corpse. And the dying man on the loosened rack laughed wildly and suddenly.
‘Fool!’ he screamed. ‘The jewel is yours! I give you death with it! The scratch on your thumb – look at the dragon’s head, Valbroso!’
They all wheeled, stared. Something tiny and dully gleaming stood up from the gaping, carved mouth.
‘The dragon’s fang!’ shrieked Zorathus. ‘Steeped in the venom of the black Stygian scorpion! Fool, fool to open the box of Zorathus with your naked hand! Death! You are a dead man now!’
And with bloody foam on his lips he died.
Valbroso staggered, crying out. ‘Ah, Mitra, I burn!’ he shrieked. ‘My veins race with liquid fire! My joints are bursting asunder! Death! Death!’ And he reeled and crashed headlong. There was an instant of awful convulsions, in which the limbs were twisted into hideous and unnatural positions, and then in that posture the man froze, his glassy eyes staring sightlessly upward, his lips drawn back from blackened gums.
‘Dead!’ muttered Conan, stooping to pick up the jewel where it rolled on the floor from Valbroso’s rigid hand. It lay on the floor like a quivering pool of sunset fire.
‘Dead!’ muttered Beloso, with madness in his eyes. And then he moved.
Conan was caught off guard, his eyes dazzled, his brain dazed by the blaze of the great gem. He did not realize Beloso’s intention until something crashed with terrible force upon his helmet. The glow of the jewel was splashed with redder flame, and he went to his knees under the blow.
He heard a rush of feet, a bellow of ox-like agony. He was stunned but not wholly senseless, and realized that Beloso had caught up the iron box and crashed it down on his head as he stooped. Only his basinet had saved his skull. He staggered up, drawing his sword, trying to shake the dimness out of his eyes. The room swam to his dizzy gaze. But the door was open and fleet footsteps were dwindling down the winding stair. On the floor the brutish torturer was gasping out his life with a great gash under his breast. And the Heart of Ahriman was gone.
Conan reeled out of the chamber, sword in hand, blood streaming down his face from under his burganet. He ran drunkenly down the steps, hearing a clang of steel in the courtyard below, shouts, then the frantic drum of hoofs. Rushing into the bailey he saw the men-at-arms milling about confusedly, while women screeched. The postern gate stood open and a soldier lay across his pike with his head split. Horses, still bridled and saddled, ran neighing about the court, Conan’s black stallion among them.
‘He’s mad!’ howled a woman, wringing her hands as she rushed brainlessly about. ‘He came out of the castle like a mad dog, hewing right and left! Beloso’s mad! Where’s Lord Valbroso?’
‘Which way did he go?’ roared Conan.
All turned and stared at the stranger’s bloodstained face and naked sword.
‘Through the postern!’ shrilled a woman, pointing eastward, and another bawled: ‘Who is this rogue?’
‘Beloso has killed Valbroso!’ yelled Conan, leaping and seizing the stallion’s mane, as the men-at-arms advanced uncertainly on him. A wild outcry burst forth at his news, but their reaction was exactly as he had anticipated. Instead of closing the gates to take him prisoner, or pursuing the fleeing slayer to avenge their lord, they were thrown into even greater confusion by his words. Wolves bound together only by fear of Valbroso, they owed no allegiance to the castle or to each other.
Swords began to clash in the courtyard, and women screamed. And in the midst of it all, none noticed Conan as he shot through the postern gate and thundered down the hill. The wide plain spread before him, and beyond the hill the caravan road divided: one branch ran south, the other east. And on the eastern road he saw another rider, bending low and spurring hard. The plain swam to Conan’s gaze, the sunlight was a thick red haze and he reeled in his saddle, grasping the flowing mane with his hand. Blood rained on his mail, but grimly he urged the stallion on.
Behind him smoke began to pour out of the castle on the hill where the count’s body lay forgotten and unheeded beside that of his prisoner. The sun was setting; against a lurid red sky the two black figures fled.
The stallion was not fresh, but neither was the horse ridden by Beloso. But the great beast responded mightily, calling on deep reservoirs of reserve vitality. Why the Zingaran fled from one pursuer Conan did not tax his bruised brain to guess. Perhaps unreasoning panic rode Beloso, born of the madness that lurked in that blazing jewel. The sun was gone; the white road was a dim glimmer through a ghostly twilight fading into purple gloom far ahead of him.
The stallion panted, laboring hard. The country was changing, in the gathering dusk. Bare plains gave way to clumps of oaks and alders. Low hills mounted up in the distance. Stars began to blink out. The stallion gasped and reeled in his course. But ahead rose a dense wood that stretched to the hills on the horizon, and between it and himself Conan glimpsed the dim form of the fugitive. He urged on the distressed stallion, for he saw that he was overtaking his prey, yard by yard. Above the pound of the hoofs a strange cry rose from the shadows, but neither pursuer nor pursued gave heed.