The Scarlet Citadel by Robert E. Howard

Author:Robert E. Howard
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781406572162
Publisher: Dodo Press
Published: 2008-02-15T17:07:42.503000+00:00

"Yagkoolan Ishtar!" murmured the stranger. "Ten years!" He drew a hand across his brow, shaking hishead as if to clear his brain of cobwebs. "All is dim yet. After a ten-year emptiness, the mind can not beexpected to begin functioning clearly at once. Who are you?"

"Conan, once of Cimmeria. Now king of Aquilonia."

The other's eyes showed surprize.

"Indeed? And Namedides?"

"I strangled him on his throne the night I took the royal city," answered Conan.

A certain naivete in the king's reply twitched the stranger's lips.

"Pardon, your majesty. I should have thanked you for the service you have done me. I am like a manwoken suddenly from sleep deeper than death and shot with nightmares of agony more fierce than hell,but I understand that you delivered me. Tell me--why did you cut the stem of the plant Yothga instead oftearing it up by the roots?"

"Because I learned long ago to avoid touching with my flesh that which I do not understand," answeredthe Cimmerian.

"Well for you," said the stranger. "Had you been able to tear it up, you might have found things clingingto the roots against which not even your sword would prevail. Yothga's roots are set in hell."

"But who are you?" demanded Conan.

"Men called me Pelias."

"What!" cried the king. "Pelias the sorcerer, Tsotha-lanti's rival, who vanished from the earth ten yearsago?"

"Not entirely from the earth," answered Pelias with a wry smile. "Tsotha preferred to keep me alive, inshackles more grim than rusted iron. He pent me in here with this devil-flower whose seeds drifted downthrough the black cosmos from Yag the Accursed, and found fertile field only in the maggot-writhingcorruption that seethes on the floors of hell.

"I could not remember my sorcery and the words and symbols of my power, with that cursed thinggripping me and drinking my soul with its loathsome caresses. It sucked the contents of my mind day andnight, leaving my brain as empty as a broken wine-jug. Ten years! Ishtar preserve us!"

Conan found no reply, but stood holding the stump of the torch, and trailing his great sword. Surely theman was mad--yet there was no madness in the dark eyes that rested so calmly on him.

"Tell me, is the black wizard in Khorshemish? But no--you need not reply. My powers begin to wake,and I sense in your mind a great battle and a king trapped by treachery. And I see Tsotha-lanti ridinghard for the Tybor with Strabonus and the king of Ophir. So much the better. My art is too frail from thelong slumber to face Tsotha yet. I need time to recruit my strength, to assemble my powers. Let us goforth from these pits."

Page 13

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