The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (6 page)

Holding the jewel gingerly, he went out of the fantastic chamber
and came upon the silver steps. He did not look back; he instinctively
felt that some form of transmutation was taking place in the body
on the marble couch, and he further felt that it was a sort not to be
witnessed by human eyes.

He closed the ivory door behind him and without hesitation
descended the silver steps. It did not occur to him to ignore the
instructions given him. He halted at an ebony door, in the centre of
which was a grinning silver skull, and pushed it open. He looked into
a chamber of ebony and jet and saw, on a black silken couch, a tall,
spare form reclining. Yara the priest and sorcerer lay before him, his
eyes open and dilated with the fumes of the yellow lotus, far-staring,
as if fixed on gulfs and nighted abysses beyond human ken.

“Yara!” said Conan, like a judge pronouncing doom. “Awaken!”

The eyes cleared instantly and became cold and cruel as a vulture’s.
The tall, silken-clad form lifted erect and towered gauntly above the
Cimmerian.

“Dog!” His hiss was like the voice of a cobra. “What do you here?”

Conan laid the jewel on the great ebony table.

“He who sent this gem bade me say, ‘Yag-kosha gives a last gift and
a last enchantment.’”

Yara recoiled, his dark face ashy. The jewel was no longer crystal-
clear; its murky depths pulsed and throbbed, and curious smoky
waves of changing colour passed over its smooth surface. As if drawn
hypnotically, Yara bent over the table and gripped the gem in his
hands, staring into its shadowed depths, as if it were a magnet to
draw the shuddering soul from his body. And as Conan looked, he
thought that his eyes must be playing him tricks. For when Yara had
risen up from his couch, the priest had seemed gigantically tall; yet
now he saw that Yara’s head would scarcely come to his shoulder. He
blinked, puzzled, and for the first time that night doubted his own
senses. Then with a shock he realized that the priest was shrinking in
stature—was growing smaller before his very gaze.

With a detached feeling he watched, as a man might watch a play;
immersed in a feeling of overpowering unreality, the Cimmerian was
no longer sure of his own identity; he only knew that he was looking
upon the external evidences of the unseen play of vast Outer forces,
beyond his understanding.

Now Yara was no bigger than a child; now like an infant he
sprawled on the table, still grasping the jewel. And now the sorcerer
suddenly realized his fate, and he sprang up, releasing the gem. But
still he dwindled, and Conan saw a tiny, pigmy figure rushing wildly
about the ebony tabletop, waving tiny arms and shrieking in a voice
that was like the squeak of an insect.

Now he had shrunk until the great jewel towered above him like a
hill, and Conan saw him cover his eyes with his hands, as if to shield
them from the glare, as he staggered about like a madman. Conan
sensed that some unseen magnetic force was pulling Yara to the gem.
Thrice he raced wildly about it in a narrowing circle, thrice he strove
to turn and run out across the table; then with a scream that echoed
faintly in the ears of the watcher, the priest threw up his arms and ran
straight towards the blazing globe.

Bending close, Conan saw Yara clamber up the smooth, curving
surface, impossibly, like a man climbing a glass mountain. Now the
priest stood on the top, still with tossing arms, invoking what grisly
names only the gods know. And suddenly he sank into the very heart
of the jewel, as a man sinks into a sea, and Conan saw the smoky
waves close over his head. Now he saw him in the crimson heart of
the jewel, once more crystal-clear, as a man sees a scene far away,
tiny with great distance. And into the heart came a green shining
winged figure with the body of a man and the head of an elephant—
no longer blind or crippled. Yara threw up his arms and fled as a
madman flees, and on his heels came the avenger. Then, like the
bursting of a bubble, the great jewel vanished in a rainbow burst of
iridescent gleams, and the ebony tabletop lay bare and deserted—as
bare, Conan somehow knew, as the marble couch in the chamber
above, where the body of that strange transcosmic being called Yag-
kosha and Yogah had lain.

The Cimmerian turned and fled from the chamber, down the
silver stairs. So mazed was he that it did not occur to him to escape
from the tower by the way he had entered it. Down that winding,
shadowy silver well he ran, and came into a larger chamber at the
foot of the gleaming stairs. There he halted for an instant; he had
come into the room of the soldiers. He saw the glitter of their silver
corselets, the sheen of their jewelled sword-hilts. They sat slumped at
the banquet board, their dusky plumes waving sombrely above their
drooping helmeted heads; they lay among their dice and fallen goblets
on the wine-stained, lapis-lazuli floor. And he knew that they were
dead. The promise had been made, the word kept; whether sorcery
or magic or the falling shadow of great green wings had stilled the
revelry, Conan could not know, but his way had been made clear.
And a silver door stood open, framed in the whiteness of dawn.

Into the waving green gardens came the Cimmerian and, as
the dawn wind blew upon him with the cool fragrance of luxuriant
growths, he started like a man waking from a dream. He turned back
uncertainly, to stare at the cryptic tower he had just left. Was he
bewitched and enchanted? Had he dreamed all that had seemed to
have passed? As he looked he saw the gleaming tower sway against
the crimson dawn, its jewel-crusted rim sparkling in the growing
light, and crash into shining shards.

C. L. MOORE

1

T
hey
brought
in
Joiry’s tall commander, struggling between two men-at-arms who tightly gripped the ropes which bound their captive’s mailed arms. They picked their way between mounds of dead as they crossed the great hall toward the dais where the conqueror sat, and twice they slipped a little in the blood that spattered the flags. When they came to a halt before the mailed figure on the dais, Joiry’s commander was breathing hard, and the voice that echoed hollowly under the helmet’s confines was hoarse with fury and despair.

Guillaume the conqueror leaned on his mighty sword, hands crossed on its hilt, grinning down from his height upon the furious captive before him. He was a big man, Guillaume, and he looked bigger still in his spattered armor. There was blood on his hard, scarred face, and he was grinning a white grin that split his short, curly beard glitteringly. Very splendid and very dangerous he looked, leaning on his great sword and smiling down upon fallen Joiry’s lord, struggling between the stolid men-at-arms.

“Unshell me this lobster,” said Guillaume in his deep, lazy voice.
“We’ll see what sort of face the fellow has who gave us such a battle.
Off with his helmet, you.”

But a third man had to come up and slash the straps which held
the iron helmet on, for the struggles of Joiry’s commander were too
fierce, even with bound arms, for either of the guards to release their
hold. There was a moment of sharp struggle; then the straps parted
and the helmet rolled loudly across the flagstones.

Guillaume’s white teeth clicked on a startled oath. He stared.
Joiry’s lady glared back at him from between her captors, wild red
hair tousled, wild lion-yellow eyes ablaze.

“God curse you!” snarled the lady of Joiry between clenched teeth.
“God blast your black heart!”

Guillaume scarcely heard her. He was still staring, as most men
stared when they first set eyes upon Jirel of Joiry. She was tall as most
men, and as savage as the wildest of them, and the fall of Joiry was
bitter enough to break her heart as she stood snarling curses up at her
tall conqueror. The face above her mail might not have been fair in
a woman’s head-dress, but in the steel setting of her armor it had a
biting, sword-edge beauty as keen as the flash of blades. The red hair
was short upon her high, defiant head, and the yellow blaze of her
eyes held fury as a crucible holds fire.

Guillaume’s stare melted into a slow smile. A little light kindled
behind his eyes as he swept the long, strong lines of her with a
practiced gaze. The smile broadened, and suddenly he burst into full-
throated laughter, a deep bull bellow of amusement and delight.

“By the Nails!” he roared. “Here’s welcome for the warrior! And
what forfeit d’ye offer, pretty one, for your life?”

She blazed a curse at him.

“So? Naughty words for a mouth so fair, my lady. Well, we’ll not
deny you put up a gallant battle. No man could have done better, and
many have done worse. But against Guillaume—” He inflated his
splendid chest and grinned down at her from the depths of his jutting
beard. “Come to me, pretty one,” he commanded. “I’ll wager your
mouth is sweeter than your words.”

Jirel drove a spurred heel into the shin of one guard and twisted
from his grip as he howled, bringing up an iron knee into the abdomen
of the other. She had writhed from their grip and made three long
strides toward the door before Guillaume caught her. She felt his
arms closing about her from behind, and lashed out with both spiked
heels in a futile assault upon his leg armor, twisting like a maniac,
fighting with her knees and spurs, straining hopelessly at the ropes
which bound her arms. Guillaume laughed and whirled her round,
grinning down into the blaze of her yellow eyes. Then deliberately he
set a fist under her chin and tilted her mouth up to his. There was a
cessation of her hoarse curses.

“By Heaven, that’s like kissing a sword-blade,” said Guillaume,
lifting his lips at last.

Jirel choked something that was mercifully muffled as she darted
her head sidewise, like a serpent striking, and sank her teeth into his
neck. She missed the jugular by a fraction of an inch.

Guillaume said nothing, then. He sought her head with a steady
hand, found it despite her wild writhing, sank iron fingers deep into
the hinges of her jaw, forcing her teeth relentlessly apart. When he
had her free he glared down into the yellow hell of her eyes for an
instant. The blaze of them was hot enough to scorch his scarred face.
He grinned and lifted his ungauntleted hand, and with one heavy
blow in the face he knocked her halfway across the room. She lay still
upon the flags.

2

Jirel opened her yellow eyes upon darkness. She lay quiet for a while, collecting her scattered thoughts. By degrees it came back to her, and she muffled upon her arm a sound that was half curse and half sob. Joiry had fallen. For a time she lay rigid in the dark, forcing herself to the realization.

The sound of feet shifting on stone near by brought her out of
that particular misery. She sat up cautiously, feeling about her to
determine in what part of Joiry its liege lady was imprisoned. She
knew that the sound she had heard must be a sentry, and by the dank
smell of the darkness that she was underground. In one of the little
dungeon cells, of course. With careful quietness she got to her feet,
muttering a curse as her head reeled for an instant and then began to
throb. In the utter dark she felt around the cell. Presently she came
to a little wooden stool in a corner, and was satisfied. She gripped one
leg of it with firm fingers and made her soundless way around the wall
until she had located the door.

The sentry remembered, afterward, that he had heard the wildest
shriek for help which had ever rung in his ears, and he remembered
unbolting the door. Afterward, until they found him lying inside the
locked cell with a cracked skull, he remembered nothing.

Jirel crept up the dark stairs of the north turret, murder in her
heart. Many little hatreds she had known in her life, but no such
blaze as this. Before her eyes in the night she could see Guillaume’s
scornful, scarred face laughing, the little jutting beard split with the
whiteness of his mirth. Upon her mouth she felt the remembered
weight of his, about her the strength of his arms. And such a blast
of hot fury came over her that she reeled a little and clutched at the
wall for support. She went on in a haze of red anger, and something
like madness burning in her brain as a resolve slowly took shape out
of the chaos of her hate. When that thought came to her she paused
again, mid-step upon the stairs, and was conscious of a little coldness
blowing over her. Then it was gone, and she shivered a little, shook
her shoulders and grinned wolfishly, and went on.

By the stars she could see through the arrow-slits in the wall it
must be near to midnight. She went softly on the stairs, and she
encountered no one. Her little tower room at the top was empty.
Even the straw pallet where the serving-wench slept had not been
used that night. Jirel got herself out of her armor alone, somehow,
after much striving and twisting. Her doeskin shirt was stiff with
sweat and stained with blood. She tossed it disdainfully into a corner.
The fury in her eyes had cooled now to a contained and secret flame.
She smiled to herself as she slipped a fresh shirt of doeskin over her
tousled red head and donned a brief tunic of link-mail. On her legs
she buckled the greaves of some forgotten legionary, relic of the not
long past days when Rome still ruled the world. She thrust a dagger
through her belt and took her own long two-handed sword bare-
bladed in her grip. Then she went down the stairs again.

She knew there must have been revelry and feasting in the great hall that night, and by the silence hanging so heavily now she was sure that most of her enemies lay still in drunken slumber, and she experienced a swift regret for the gallons of her good French wine so wasted. And the thought flashed through her head that a determined woman with a sharp sword might work some little damage among the drunken sleepers before she was overpowered. But she put that idea by, for Guillaume would have posted sentries to spare, and she must not give up her secret freedom so fruitlessly.

Down the dark stairs she went, and crossed one corner of the vast central hall whose darkness she was sure hid wine-deadened sleepers, and so into the lesser dimness of the rough little chapel that Joiry boasted. She had been sure she would find Father Gervase there, and she was not mistaken. He rose from his knees before the altar, dark in his robe, the starlight through the narrow window shining upon his tonsure.

“My daughter!” he whispered. “My daughter! How have you escaped? Shall I find you a mount? If you can pass the sentries you should be in your cousin’s castle by daybreak.”

She hushed him with a lifted hand.

“No,” she said. “It is not outside I go this night. I have a more perilous journey even than that to make. Shrive me, father.”

He stared at her.

“What is it?”

She dropped to her knees before him and gripped the rough cloth of his habit with urgent fingers.

“Shrive me, I say! I go down into hell tonight to pray the devil for a weapon, and it may be I shall not return.”

Gervase bent and gripped her shoulders with hands that shook.

“Look at me!” he demanded. “Do you know what you’re saying? You go—”

“Down!” She said it firmly. “Only you and I know that passage, father—and not even we can be sure of what lies beyond. But to gain a weapon against that man I would venture into perils even worse than that.”

“If I thought you meant it,” he whispered, “I would waken Guillaume now and give you into his arms. It would be a kinder fate, my daughter.”

“It’s that I would walk through hell to escape,” she whispered back fiercely. “Can’t you see? Oh, God knows I’m not innocent of the ways of light loving—but to be any man’s fancy, for a night or two, before he snaps my neck or sells me into slavery—and above all, if that man were Guillaume! Can’t you understand?”

“That would be shame enough,” nodded Gervase. “But think, Jirel! For that shame there is atonement and absolution, and for that death the gates of heaven open wide. But this other—Jirel, Jirel, never through all eternity may you come out, body or soul, if you venture—down!”

She shrugged.

“To wreak my vengeance upon Guillaume I would go if I knew I should burn in hell for ever.”

“But Jirel, I do not think you understand. This is a worse fate than the deepest depths of hell-fire. This is—this is beyond all the bounds of the hells we know. And I think Satan’s hottest flames were the breath of paradise, compared to what may befall there.”

“I know. Do you think I’d venture down if I could not be sure? Where else would I find such a weapon as I need, save outside God’s dominion?”

“Jirel, you shall not!”

“Gervase, I go! Will you shrive me?” The hot yellow eyes blazed into his, lambent in the starlight.

After a moment he dropped his head. “You are my lady. I will give you God’s blessing, but it will not avail you—there.”

3

She went down into the dungeons again. She went down a long way through utter dark, over stones that were oozy and odorous with moisture, through blackness that had never known the light of day. She might have been a little afraid at other times, but that steady flame of hatred burning behind her eyes was a torch to light the way, and she could not wipe from her memory the feel of Guillaume’s arms about her, the scornful press of his lips on her mouth. She whimpered a little, low in her throat, and a hot gust of hate went over her.

In the solid blackness she came at length to a wall, and she set herself to pulling the loose stones from this with her free hand, for she would not lay down the sword. They had never been laid in mortar, and they came out easily. When the way was clear she stepped through and found her feet upon a downward-sloping ramp of smooth stone. She cleared the rubble away from the hole in the wall, and enlarged it enough for a quick passage; for when she came back this way—if she did—it might well be that she would come very fast.

At the bottom of the slope she dropped to her knees on the cold floor and felt about. Her fingers traced the outline of a circle, the veriest crack in the stone. She felt until she found the ring in its center. That ring was of the coldest metal she had ever known, and the smoothest. She could put no name to it. The daylight had never shone upon such metal.