Title: The fire of Asshurbanipal
Author: Howard, Robert E. (Robert Ervin)
Language: English
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ASSHURBANIPAL ***



                       The Fire of Asshurbanipal

                          By ROBERT E. HOWARD

                _The tale of a silent dead sea of black
            stone set in the drifting sands of the desert,
               and of a flaming gem clutched in the bony
             fingers of a skeleton on an ancient throne._

    Robert E. Howard is dead, but his genius lives on in his
    fascinating, vivid stories. He had the knack of depicting his
    characters in action so that they stepped out of the printed page
    and gripped the sympathies of the readers--Conan the barbarian
    adventurer--Solomon Kane, the dour Puritan soldier and redresser
    of wrongs--King Kull, the valiant fighter from the shadowy kingdoms
    of the world's dawn--heroes all, and doughty men of might. The
    posthumous weird tale by Mr. Howard presented here, "The Fire of
    Asshurbanipal," is an outre adventure story of much power. We
    commend it to you.

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Weird Tales December 1936.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Yar Ali squinted carefully down the blue barrel of his Lee-Enfield,
called devoutly on Allah and sent a bullet through the brain of a
flying rider.

"_Allaho akbar!_"

The big Afghan shouted in glee, waving his weapon above his head, "God
is great! By Allah, _sahib_, I have sent another one of the dogs to
Hell!"

His companion peered cautiously over the rim of the sand-pit they
had scooped with their hands. He was a lean and wiry American, Steve
Clarney by name.

"Good work, old horse," said this person. "Four left. Look--they're
drawing off."

The white-robed horsemen were indeed reining away, clustering together
just out of accurate rifle-range, as if in council. There had been
seven when they had first swooped down on the comrades, but the fire
from the two rifles in the sand-pit had been deadly.

"Look, _sahib_--they abandon the fray!"

Yar Ali stood up boldly and shouted taunts at the departing riders, one
of whom whirled and sent a bullet that kicked up sand thirty feet in
front of the pit.

"They shoot like the sons of dogs," said Yar Ali in complacent
self-esteem. "By Allah, did you see that rogue plunge from his saddle
as my lead went home? Up, _sahib_; let us run after them and cut them
down!"

Paying no attention to this outrageous proposal--for he knew it was
but one of the gestures Afghan nature continually demands--Steve
rose, dusted off his breeches and gazing after the riders, now white
specks far out on the desert, said musingly: "Those fellows ride as if
they had some set purpose in mind--not a bit like men running from a
licking."

"Aye," agreed Yar Ali promptly and seeing nothing inconsistent with his
present attitude and recent bloodthirsty suggestion, "they ride after
more of their kind--they are hawks who give up their prey not quickly.
We had best move our position quickly, Steve _sahib_. They will come
back--maybe in a few hours, maybe in a few days--it all depends on
how far away lies the oasis of their tribe. But they will be back. We
have guns and lives--they want both. And behold."

The Afghan levered out the empty shell and slipped a single cartridge
into the breech of his rifle.

"My last bullet, _sahib_."

Steve nodded. "I've got three left."

The raiders whom their bullets had knocked from the saddle had been
looted by their own comrades. No use searching the bodies which lay in
the sand for ammunition. Steve lifted his canteen and shook it. Not
much water remained. He knew that Yar Ali had only a little more than
he, though the big Afridi, bred in a barren land, had used and needed
less water than did the American; although the latter, judged from a
white man's standards, was hard and tough as a wolf. As Steve unscrewed
the canteen cap and drank very sparingly, he mentally reviewed the
chain of events that had led them to their present position.

Wanderers, soldiers of fortune, thrown together by chance and attracted
to each other by mutual admiration, he and Yar Ali had wandered
from India up through Turkistan and down through Persia, an oddly
assorted but highly capable pair. Driven by the restless urge of
inherent wanderlust, their avowed purpose--which they swore to and
sometimes believed themselves--was the accumulation of some vague and
undiscovered treasure, some pot of gold at the foot of some yet unborn
rainbow.

Then in ancient Shiraz they had heard of the Fire of Asshurbanipal.
From the lips of an ancient Persian trader, who only half believed what
he repeated to them, they heard the tale that he in turn had heard
from the babbling lips of delirium, in his distant youth. He had been
a member of a caravan, fifty years before, which, wandering far on the
southern shore of the Persian Gulf trading for pearls, had followed the
tale of a rare pearl far into the desert.

The pearl, rumored found by a diver and stolen by a shaykh of the
interior, they did not find, but they did pick up a Turk who was dying
of starvation, thirst and a bullet wound in the thigh. As he died in
delirium, he babbled a wild tale of a silent dead city of black stone
set in the drifting sands of the desert far to the westward, and of a
flaming gem clutched in the bony fingers of a skeleton on an ancient
throne.

He had not dared bring it away with him, because of an overpowering
brooding horror that haunted the place, and thirst had driven him
into the desert again, where Bedouins had pursued and wounded him.
Yet he had escaped, riding hard until his horse fell under him. He
died without telling how he had reached the mythical city in the
first place, but the old trader thought he must have come from the
northwest--a deserter from the Turkish army, making a desperate attempt
to reach the Gulf.

The men of the caravan had made no attempt to plunge still further
into the desert in search of the city; for, said the old trader, they
believed it to be the ancient, ancient City of Evil spoken of in the
_Necronomicon_ of the mad Arab Al-hazred--the city of the dead on which
an ancient curse rested. Legends named it vaguely: the Arabs called it
_Beled-el-Djinn_, the City of Devils, and the Turks, _Kara-Shehr_, the
Black City. And the gem was that ancient and accursed jewel belonging
to a king of long ago, whom the Grecians called Sardanapalus and the
Semitic peoples Asshurbanipal.

       *       *       *       *       *

Steve had been fascinated by the tale. Admitting to himself that it was
doubtless one of the ten thousand cock-and-bull myths mooted about the
East, still there was a possibility that he and Yar Ali had stumbled
onto a trace of that pot of rainbow gold for which they searched. And
Yar Ali had heard hints before of a silent city of the sands; tales
had followed the eastbound caravans over the high Persian uplands
and across the sands of Turkistan, into the mountain country and
beyond--vague tales, whispers of a black city of the djinn, deep in the
hazes of a haunted desert.

So, following the trail of the legend, the companions had come from
Shiraz to a village on the Arabian shore of the Persian Gulf, and there
had heard more from an old man who had been a pearl-diver in his
youth. The loquacity of age was on him and he told tales repeated to
him by wandering tribesmen who had them in turn from the wild nomads of
the deep interior; and again Steve and Yar Ali heard of the still black
city with giant beasts carved of stone, and the skeleton sultan who
held the blazing gem.

And so, mentally swearing at himself for a fool, Steve had made the
plunge, and Yar Ali, secure in the knowledge that all things lay on
the lap of Allah, had come with him. Their scanty supply of money had
been just sufficient to provide riding-camels and provisions for a bold
flying invasion of the unknown. Their only chart had been the vague
rumors that placed the supposed location of Kara-Shehr.

There had been days of hard travel, pushing the beasts and conserving
water and food. Then, deep in the desert they invaded, they had
encountered a blinding sand-wind in which they had lost the camels.
After that came long miles of staggering through the sands, battered
by a flaming sun, subsisting on rapidly dwindling water from their
canteens, and food Yar Ali had in a pouch. No thought of finding the
mythical city now. They pushed on blindly, in hope of stumbling upon a
spring; they knew that behind them no oases lay within a distance they
could hope to cover on foot. It was a desperate chance, but their only
one.

Then white-clad hawks had swooped down on them, out of the haze of the
skyline, and from a shallow and hastily scooped trench the adventurers
had exchanged shots with the wild riders who circled them at top
speed. The bullets of the Bedouins had skipped through their makeshift
fortifications, knocking dust into their eyes and flicking bits of
cloth from their garments, but by good chance neither had been hit.

Their one bit of luck, reflected Clarney, as he cursed himself for a
fool. What a mad venture it had been, anyway! To think that two men
could so dare the desert and live, much less wrest from its abysmal
bosom the secrets of the ages! And that crazy tale of a skeleton hand
gripping a flaming jewel in a dead city--bosh! What utter rot! He must
have been crazy himself to credit it, the American decided with the
clarity of view that suffering and danger bring.

"Well, old horse," said Steve, lifting his rifle, "let's get
going. It's a toss-up if we die of thirst or get sniped off by the
desert-brothers. Anyway, we're doin' no good here."

"God gives," agreed Yar Ali cheerfully. "The sun sinks westward. Soon
the coolness of night will be upon us. Perhaps we shall find water yet,
_sahib_. Look, the terrain changes to the south."

Clarney shaded his eyes against the dying sun. Beyond a level, barren
expanse of several miles width, the land did indeed become more broken;
aborted hills were in evidence. The American slung his rifle over his
arm and sighed.

"Heave ahead; we're food for the buzzards anyhow."

       *       *       *       *       *

The sun sank and the moon rose, flooding the desert with weird silver
light. Drifted sand glimmered in long ripples, as if a sea had suddenly
been frozen into immobility. Steve, parched fiercely by a thirst he
dared not fully quench, cursed beneath his breath. The desert was
beautiful beneath the moon, with the beauty of a cold marble lorelei to
lure men to destruction. What a mad quest! his weary brain reiterated;
the Fire of Asshurbanipal retreated into the mazes of unreality with
each dragging step. The desert became not merely a material wasteland,
but the gray mists of the lost eons, in whose depths dreamed sunken
things.

Clarney stumbled and swore; was he failing already? Yar Ali swung along
with the easy, tireless stride of the mountain man, and Steve set his
teeth, nerving himself to greater effort. They were entering the broken
country at last, and the going became harder. Shallow gullies and
narrow ravines knifed the earth with wavering patterns. Most of them
were nearly filled with sand, and there was no trace of water.

"This country was once oasis country," commented Yar Ali. "Allah knows
how many centuries ago the sand took it, as the sand has taken so many
cities in Turkistan."

They swung on like dead men in a gray land of death. The moon grew red
and sinister as she sank, and shadowy darkness settled over the desert
before they had reached a point where they could see what lay beyond
the broken belt. Even the big Afghan's feet began to drag, and Steve
kept himself erect only by a savage effort of will. At last they toiled
up a sort of ridge, on the southern side of which the land sloped
downward.

"We rest," declared Steve. "There's no water in this hellish country.
No use in goin' on for ever. My legs are stiff as gun-barrels. I
couldn't take another step to save my neck. Here's a kind of stunted
cliff, about as high as a man's shoulder, facing south. We'll sleep in
the lee of it."

"And shall we not keep watch, Steve _sahib_?"

"We don't," answered Steve. "If the Arabs cut our throats while we're
asleep, so much the better. We're goners anyhow."

With which optimistic observation Clarney lay down stiffly in the deep
sand. But Yar Ali stood, leaning forward, straining his eyes into the
elusive darkness that turned the star-flecked horizons to murky wells
of shadow.

"Something lies on the skyline to the south," he muttered uneasily. "A
hill? I cannot tell, or even be sure that I see anything at all."

"You're seeing mirages already," said Steve irritably. "Lie down and
sleep."

And so saying Steve slumbered.

The sun in his eyes awoke him. He sat up, yawning, and his first
sensation was that of thirst. He lifted his canteen and wet his lips.
One drink left. Yar Ali still slept. Steve's eyes wandered over the
southern horizon and he started. He kicked the recumbent Afghan.

"Hey, wake up, Ali. I reckon you weren't seeing things after all.
There's your hill--and a queer-lookin' one, too."

The Afridi woke as a wild thing wakes, instantly and completely, his
hand leaping to his long knife as he glared about for enemies. His gaze
followed Steve's pointing fingers and his eyes widened.

"By Allah and by Allah!" he swore. "We have come into a land of djinn!
That is no hill--it is a city of stone in the midst of the sands!"

Steve bounded to his feet like a steel spring released. As he gazed
with bated breath, a fierce shout escaped his lips. At his feet the
slope of the ridge ran down into a wide and level expanse of sand that
stretched away southward. And far away, across those sands, to his
straining sight the "hill" slowly took shape, like a mirage growing
from the drifting sands.

He saw great uneven walls, massive battlements; all about crawled the
sands like a living, sensate thing, drifted high about the walls,
softening the rugged outlines. No wonder that at first glance the whole
had appeared like a hill.

"Kara-Shehr!" Clarney exclaimed fiercely. "Beled-el-Djinn! The city of
the dead! It wasn't a pipe-dream after all! We've found it--by Heaven,
we've found it! Come on! Let's go!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Yar Ali shook his head uncertainly and muttered something about evil
djinn under his breath, but he followed. The sight of the ruins had
swept from Steve his thirst and hunger, and the fatigue that a few
hours' sleep had not fully overcome. He trudged on swiftly, oblivious
to the rising heat, his eyes gleaming with the lust of the explorer.
It was not altogether greed for the fabled gem that had prompted Steve
Clarney to risk his life in that grim wilderness; deep in his soul
lurked the age-old heritage of the white man, the urge to seek out
the hidden places of the world, and that urge had been stirred to the
depths by the ancient tales.

Now as they crossed the level wastes that separated the broken land
from the city, they saw the shattered walls take clearer form and
shape, as if they grew out of the morning sky. The city seemed built
of huge blocks of black stone, but how high the walls had been there
was no telling because of the sand that drifted high about their base;
in many places they had fallen away and the sand hid the fragments
entirely.

The sun reached her zenith and thirst intruded itself in spite of zeal
and enthusiasm, but Steve fiercely mastered his suffering. His lips
were parched and swollen, but he would not take that last drink until
he had reached the ruined city. Yar Ali wet his lips from his own
canteen and tried to share the remainder with his friend. Steve shook
his head and plodded on.

In the ferocious heat of the desert afternoon they reached the ruin,
and passing through a wide breach in the crumbling wall, gazed on the
dead city. Sand choked the ancient streets and lent fantastic form
to huge, fallen and half-hidden columns. So crumbled into decay and
so covered with sand was the whole that the explorers could make out
little of the original plan of the city; now it was but a waste of
drifted sand and crumbling stone over which brooded, like an invisible
cloud, an aura of unspeakable antiquity.

But directly in front of them ran a broad avenue, the outline of which
not even the ravaging sands and winds of time had been able to efface.
On either side of the wide way were ranged huge columns, not unusually
tall, even allowing for the sand that hid their bases, but incredibly
massive. On the top of each column stood a figure carved from solid
stone--great, somber images, half human, half bestial, partaking of the
brooding brutishness of the whole city. Steve cried out in amazement.

"The winged bulls of Nineveh! The bulls with men's heads! By the
saints, Ali, the old tales are true! The Assyrians did build this city!
The whole tale's true! They must have come here when the Babylonians
destroyed Assyria--why, this scene's a dead ringer for pictures I've
seen--reconstructed scenes of old Nineveh! And look!"

He pointed down the broad street to the great building which reared at
the other end, a colossal, brooding edifice whose columns and walls
of solid black stone blocks defied the winds and sands of time. The
drifting, obliterating sea washed about its foundations, overflowing
into its doorways, but it would require a thousand years to inundate
the whole structure.

"An abode of devils!" muttered Yar Ali, uneasily.

"The temple of Baal!" exclaimed Steve. "Come on! I was afraid we'd
find all the palaces and temples hidden by the sand and have to dig
for the gem."

"Little good it will do us," muttered Yar Ali. "Here we die."

"I reckon so." Steve unscrewed the cap of his canteen. "Let's take
our last drink. Anyway, we're safe from the Arabs. They'd never dare
come here, with their superstitions. We'll drink and then we'll die, I
reckon, but first we'll find the jewel. When I pass out, I want to have
it in my hand. Maybe a few centuries later some lucky son-of-a-gun will
find our skeletons--and the gem. Here's to him, whoever he is!"

With which grim jest Clarney drained his canteen and Yar Ali followed
suit. They had played their last ace; the rest lay on the lap of Allah.

       *       *       *       *       *

They strode up the broad way, and Yar Ali, utterly fearless in the face
of human foes, glanced nervously to right and left, half expecting to
see a horned and fantastic face leering at him from behind a column.
Steve himself felt the somber antiquity of the place, and almost found
himself fearing a rush of bronze war chariots down the forgotten
streets, or to hear the sudden menacing flare of bronze trumpets. The
silence in dead cities was so much more intense, he reflected, than
that on the open desert.

They came to the portals of the great temple. Rows of immense columns
flanked the wide doorway, which was ankle-deep in sand, and from which
sagged massive bronze frameworks that had once braced mighty doors,
whose polished woodwork had rotted away centuries ago. They passed into
a mighty hall of misty twilight, whose shadowy stone roof was upheld
by columns like the trunks of forest trees. The whole effect of the
architecture was one of awesome magnitude and sullen, breath-taking
splendor, like a temple built by somber giants for the abode of dark
gods.

Yar Ali walked fearfully, as if he expected to awake sleeping gods, and
Steve, without the Afridi's superstitions, yet felt the gloomy majesty
of the place lay somber hands on his soul.

No trace of a footprint showed in the deep dust on the floor; half a
century had passed since the affrighted and devil-ridden Turk had fled
these silent halls. As for the Bedouins, it was easy to see why those
superstitious sons of the desert shunned this haunted city--and haunted
it was, not by actual ghosts, perhaps, but by the shadows of lost
splendors.

As they trod the sands of the hall, which seemed endless, Steve
pondered many questions: How did these fugitives from the wrath of
frenzied rebels build this city? How did they pass through the country
of their foes?--for Babylonia lay between Assyria and the Arabian
desert. Yet there had been no other place for them to go; westward lay
Syria and the sea, and north and east swarmed the "dangerous Medes",
those fierce Aryans whose aid had stiffened the arm of Babylon to smite
her foe to the dust.

Possibly, thought Steve, Kara-Shehr--whatever its name had been in
those dim days--had been built as an outpost border city before the
fall of the Assyrian empire, whither survivals of that over-throw fled.
At any rate it was possible that Kara-Shehr had outlasted Nineveh by
some centuries--a strange, hermit city, no doubt, cut off from the rest
of the world.

Surely, as Yar Ali had said, this was once fertile country, watered by
oases; and doubtless in the broken country they had passed over the
night before, there had been quarries that furnished the stone for the
building of the city.

Then what caused its downfall? Did the encroachment of the sands and
the filling up of the springs cause the people to abandon it, or was
Kara-Shehr a city of silence before the sands crept over the walls? Did
the downfall come from within or without? Did civil war blot out the
inhabitants, or were they slaughtered by some powerful foe from the
desert? Clarney shook his head in baffled chagrin. The answers to those
questions were lost in the maze of forgotten ages.

"_Allaho akbar!_" They had traversed the great shadowy hall and at
its further end they came upon a hideous black stone altar, behind
which loomed an ancient god, bestial and horrific. Steve shrugged his
shoulders as he recognized the monstrous aspect of the image--aye,
that was Baal, on which black altar in other ages many a screaming,
writhing, naked victim had offered up its naked soul. The idol embodied
in its utter, abysmal and sullen bestiality the whole soul of this
demoniac city. Surely, thought Steve, the builders of Nineveh and
Kara-Shehr were cast in another mold from the people of today. Their
art and culture were too ponderous, too grimly barren of the lighter
aspects of humanity, to be wholly human, as modern man understands
humanity. Their architecture was repellent; of high skill, yet so
massive, sullen and brutish in effect as to be almost beyond the
comprehension of moderns.

The adventurers passed through a narrow door which opened in the end of
the hall close to the idol, and came into a series of wide, dim, dusty
chambers connected by column-flanked corridors. Along these they strode
in the gray ghostly light, and came at last to a wide stair, whose
massive stone steps led upward and vanished in the gloom. Here Yar Ali
halted.

"We have dared much, _sahib_," he muttered. "Is it wise to dare more?"

Steve, aquiver with eagerness, yet understood the Afghan's mind. "You
mean we shouldn't go up those stairs?"

"They have an evil look. To what chambers of silence and horror may
they lead? When djinn haunt deserted buildings, they lurk in the upper
chambers. At any moment a demon may bite off our heads."

"We're dead men anyhow," grunted Steve. "But I tell you--you go on back
through the hall and watch for the Arabs while I go upstairs."

"Watch for a wind on the horizon," responded the Afghan gloomily,
shifting his rifle and loosening his long knife in its scabbard. "No
Bedouin comes here. Lead on, _sahib_. Thou'rt mad after the manner of
all Franks, but I would not leave thee to face the djinn alone."

So the companions mounted the massive stairs, their feet sinking deep
into the accumulated dust of centuries at each step. Up and up they
went, to an incredible height, until the depths below merged into a
vague gloom.

"We walk blind to our doom, _sahib_," muttered Yar Ali. "_Allah il
allah_--and Muhammad is his Prophet! Nevertheless, I feel the presence
of slumbering Evil and never again shall I hear the wind blowing up the
Khyber Pass."

Steve made no reply. He did not like the breathless silence that
brooded over the ancient temple, nor the grisly gray light that
filtered from some hidden source.

Now above them the gloom lightened somewhat and they emerged into a
vast circular chamber, grayly illumined by light that filtered in
through the high, pierced ceiling. But another radiance lent itself to
the illumination. A cry burst from Steve's lips, echoed by Yar Ali.

       *       *       *       *       *

Standing on the top step of the broad stone stair, they looked directly
across the broad chamber, with its dust-covered heavy tile floor and
bare black stone walls. From about the center of the chamber, massive
steps led up to a stone dais, and on this dais stood a marble throne.
About this throne glowed and shimmered an uncanny light, and the
awe-struck adventurers gasped as they saw its source. On the throne
slumped a human skeleton, an almost shapeless mass of moldering bones.
A fleshless hand sagged outstretched upon the broad marble throne-arm,
and in its grisly clasp there pulsed and throbbed like a living thing,
a great crimson stone.

The Fire of Asshurbanipal! Even after they had found the lost city
Steve had not really allowed himself to believe that they would find
the gem, or that it even existed in reality. Yet he could not doubt the
evidence of his eyes, dazzled by that evil, incredible glow. With a
fierce shout he sprang across the chamber and up the steps. Yar Ali was
at his heels, but when Steve would have seized the gem, the Afghan laid
a hand on his arm.

"Wait!" exclaimed the big Muhammadan. "Touch it not yet, _sahib_!
A curse lies on ancient things--and surely this is a thing triply
accursed! Else why has it lain here untouched in a country of thieves
for so many centuries? It is not well to disturb the possessions of the
dead."

"Bosh!" snorted the American. "Superstitions! The Bedouins were scared
by the tales that have come down to 'em from their ancestors. Being
desert-dwellers they mistrust cities anyway, and no doubt this one
had an evil reputation in its lifetime. And nobody except Bedouins
have seen this place before, except that Turk, who was probably half
demented with suffering.

"These bones may be those of the king mentioned in the legend--the dry
desert air preserves such things indefinitely--but I doubt it. May be
Assyrian--most likely Arab--some beggar that got the gem and then died
on that throne for some reason or other."

The Afghan scarcely heard him. He was gazing in fearful fascination at
the great stone, as a hypnotized bird stares into a serpent's eye.

"Look at it, _sahib_!" he whispered. "What is it? No such gem as this
was ever cut by mortal hands! Look how it throbs and pulses like the
heart of a cobra!"

Steve was looking, and he was aware of a strange undefined feeling of
uneasiness. Well versed in the knowledge of precious stones, he had
never seen a stone like this. At first glance he had supposed it to be
a monster ruby, as told in the legends. Now he was not sure, and he had
a nervous feeling that Yar Ali was right, that this was no natural,
normal gem. He could not classify the style in which it was cut, and
such was the power of its lurid radiance that he found it difficult to
gaze at it closely for any length of time. The whole setting was not
one calculated to soothe restless nerves. The deep dust on the floor
suggested an unwholesome antiquity; the gray light evoked a sense of
unreality, and the heavy black walls towered grimly, hinting at hidden
things.

"Let's take the stone and go!" muttered Steve, an unaccustomed panicky
dread rising in his bosom.

"Wait!" Yar Ali's eyes were blazing, and he gazed, not at the gem, but
at the sullen stone walls. "We are flies in the lair of the spider!
_Sahib_, as Allah lives, it is more than the ghosts of old fears that
lurk over this city of horror! I feel the presence of peril, as I have
felt it before--as I felt it in a jungle cavern where a python lurked
unseen in the darkness--as I felt it in the temple of Thuggee where the
hidden stranglers of Siva crouched to spring upon us--as I feel it
now, tenfold!"

Steve's hair prickled. He knew that Yar Ali was a grim veteran, not to
be stampeded by silly fear or senseless panic; he well remembered the
incidents referred to by the Afghan, as he remembered other occasions
upon which Yar Ali's Oriental telepathic instinct had warned him of
danger before that danger was seen or heard.

"What is it, Yar Ali?" he whispered.

The Afghan shook his head, his eyes filled with a weird mysterious
light as he listened to the dim occult promptings of his
subconsciousness.

"I know not; I know it is close to us, and that it is very ancient and
very evil. I think----" Suddenly he halted and wheeled, the eery light
vanishing from his eyes to be replaced by a glare of wolf-like fear and
suspicion.

"Hark, _sahib_!" he snapped. "Ghosts or dead men mount the stair!"

Steve stiffened as the stealthy pad of soft sandals on stone reached
his ear.

"By Judas, Ali!" he rapped; "something's out there----"

The ancient walls re-echoed to a chorus of wild yells as a horde of
savage figures flooded the chamber. For one dazed insane instant Steve
believed wildly that they were being attacked by re-embodied warriors
of a vanished age; then the spiteful crack of a bullet past his ear
and the acrid smell of powder told him that their foes were material
enough. Clarney cursed; in their fancied security they had been caught
like rats in a trap by the pursuing Arabs.

       *       *       *       *       *

Even as the American threw up his rifle, Yar Ali fired point-blank
from the hip with deadly effect, hurled his empty rifle into the horde
and went down the steps like a hurricane, his three-foot Khyber knife
shimmering in his hairy hand. Into his gusto for battle went real
relief that his foes were human. A bullet ripped the turban from his
head, but an Arab went down with a split skull beneath the hillman's
first, shearing stroke.

A tall Bedouin clapped his gun-muzzle to the Afghan's side, but before
he could pull the trigger, Clarney's bullet scattered his brains.
The very number of the attackers hindered their onslaught on the
big Afridi, whose tigerish quickness made shooting as dangerous to
themselves as to him. The bulk of them swarmed about him, striking with
simitar and rifle-stock while others charged up the steps after Steve.
At that range there was no missing; the American simply thrust his
rifle muzzle into a bearded face and blasted it into a ghastly ruin.
The others came on, screaming like panthers.

And now as he prepared to expend his last cartridge, Clarney saw two
things in one flashing instant--a wild warrior who, with froth on his
beard and a heavy simitar uplifted, was almost upon him, and another
who knelt on the floor drawing a careful bead on the plunging Yar
Ali. Steve made an instant choice and fired over the shoulder of the
charging swordsman, killing the rifleman--and voluntarily offering his
own life for his friend's; for the simitar was swinging at his own
head. But even as the Arab swung, grunting with the force of the blow,
his sandaled foot slipped on the marble steps and the curved blade,
veering erratically from its arc, clashed on Steve's rifle-barrel. In
an instant the American clubbed his rifle, and as the Bedouin recovered
his balance and again heaved up the simitar, Clarney struck with all
his rangy power, and stock and skull shattered together.

Then a heavy ball smacked into his shoulder, sickening him with the
shock.

As he staggered dizzily, a Bedouin whipped a turban-cloth about his
feet and jerked viciously. Clarney pitched headlong down the steps, to
strike with stunning force. A gun-stock in a brown hand went up to dash
out his brains, but an imperious command halted the blow.

"Slay him not, but bind him hand and foot."

As Steve struggled dazedly against many gripping hands, it seemed to
him that somewhere he had heard that imperious voice before.

       *       *       *       *       *

The American's downfall had occurred in a matter of seconds. Even as
Steve's second shot had cracked, Yar Ali had half severed a raider's
arm and himself received a numbing blow from a rifle-stock on his left
shoulder. His sheep-skin coat, worn despite the desert heat, saved his
hide from half a dozen slashing knives. A rifle was discharged so close
to his face that the powder burnt him fiercely, bringing a bloodthirsty
yell from the maddened Afghan. As Yar Ali swung up his dripping blade
the rifleman, ashy-faced, lifted his rifle above his head in both
hands to parry the downward blow, whereat the Afridi, with a yelp of
ferocious exultation, shifted as a jungle-cat strikes and plunged his
long knife into the Arab's belly. But at that instant a rifle-stock,
swung with all the hearty ill-will its wielder could evoke, crashed
against the giant's head, laying open the scalp and dashing him to his
knees.

With the dogged and silent ferocity of his breed, Yar Ali staggered
blindly up again, slashing at foes he could scarcely see, but a storm
of blows battered him down again, nor did his attackers cease beating
him until he lay still. They would have finished him in short order
then, but for another peremptory order from their chief; whereupon they
bound the senseless knife-man and flung him down alongside Steve, who
was fully conscious and aware of the savage hurt of the bullet in his
shoulder.

He glared up at the tall Arab who stood looking down at him.

"Well, _sahib_," said this one--and Steve saw he was no Bedouin--"do
you not remember me?"

Steve scowled; a bullet wound is no aid to concentration.

"You look familiar--by Judas!--you are! Nureddin El Mekru!"

"I am honored! The _sahib_ remembers!" Nureddin salaamed mockingly.
"And you remember, no doubt, the occasion on which you made me a
present of--this?"

The dark eyes shadowed with bitter menace and the shaykh indicated a
thin white scar on the angle of his jaw.

"I remember," snarled Clarney, whom pain and anger did not tend to make
docile. "It was in Somaliland, years ago. You were in the slave-trade
then. A wretch of a nigger escaped from you and took refuge with me.
You walked into my camp one night in your high-handed way, started a
row and in the ensuing scrap you got a butcher-knife across your face.
I wish I'd cut your lousy throat."

"You had your chance," answered the Arab. "Now the tables are turned."

"I thought your stamping-ground lay west," growled Clarney; "Yemen and
the Somali country."

"I quit the slave-trade long ago," answered the shaykh. "It is an
outworn game. I led a band of thieves in Yemen for a time; then again
I was forced to change my location. I came here with a few faithful
followers, and by Allah, those wild men nearly slit my throat at first.
But I overcame their suspicions, and now I lead more men than have
followed me in years.

"They whom you fought off yesterday were my men--scouts I had sent out
ahead. My oasis lies far to the west. We have ridden for many days, for
I was on my way to this very city. When my scouts rode in and told me
of two wanderers, I did not alter my course, for I had business first
in Beled-el-Djinn. We rode into the city from the west and saw your
tracks in the sand. We followed them, and you were blind buffalo who
heard not our coming."

Steve snarled. "You wouldn't have caught us so easy, only we thought no
Bedouin would dare come into Kara-Shehr."

Nureddin nodded. "But I am no Bedouin. I have traveled far and seen
many lands and many races, and I have read many books. I know that fear
is smoke, that the dead are dead, and that djinn and ghosts and curses
are mists that the wind blows away. It was because of the tales of
the red stone that I came into this forsaken desert. But it has taken
months to persuade my men to ride with me here.

"But--I am here! And your presence is a delightful surprize. Doubtless
you have guessed why I had you taken alive; I have more elaborate
entertainment planned for you and that Pathan swine. Now--I take the
Fire of Asshurbanipal and we will go."

       *       *       *       *       *

He turned toward the dais, and one of his men, a bearded one-eyed
giant, exclaimed, "Hold, my lord! Ancient evil reigned here before the
days of Muhammad! The djinn howl through these halls when the winds
blow, and men have seen ghosts dancing on the walls beneath the moon.
No man of mortals has dared this black city for a thousand years--save
one, half a century ago, who fled shrieking.

"You have come here from Yemen; you do not know the ancient curse on
this foul city, and this evil stone, which pulses like the red heart
of Satan! We have followed you here against our judgment, because you
have proven yourself a strong man, and have said you hold a charm
against all evil beings. You said you but wished to look on this
mysterious gem, but now we see it is your intention to take it for
yourself. Do not offend the djinn!"

"Nay, Nureddin, do not offend the djinn!" chorused the other Bedouins.
The shaykh's own hard-bitten ruffians, standing in a compact group
somewhat apart from the Bedouins, said nothing; hardened to crimes
and deeds of impiety, they were less affected by the superstitions
of the desert men, to whom the dread tale of the accursed city had
been repeated for centuries. Steve, even while hating Nureddin with
concentrated venom, realized the magnetic power of the man, the innate
leadership that had enabled him to overcome thus far the fears and
traditions of ages.

"The curse is laid on infidels who invade the city," answered Nureddin,
"not on the Faithful. See, in this chamber have we overcome our _kafar_
foes!"

A white-bearded desert hawk shook his head.

"The curse is more ancient than Muhammad, and recks not of race or
creed. Evil men reared this black city in the dawn of the Beginnings of
Days. They oppressed our ancestors of the black tents, and warred among
themselves; aye, the black walls of this foul city were stained with
blood, and echoed to the shouts of unholy revel and the whispers of
dark intrigues.

"Thus came the stone to the city: there dwelt a magician at the court
of Asshurbanipal, and the black wisdom of ages was not denied to him.
To gain honor and power for himself, he dared the horrors of a nameless
vast cavern in a dark, untraveled land, and from those fiend-haunted
depths he brought that blazing gem, which is carved of the frozen
flames of Hell! By reason of his fearful power in black magic, he put a
spell on the demon which guarded the ancient gem, and so stole away the
stone. And the demon slept in the cavern unknowing.

"So this magician--Xuthltan by name--dwelt in the court of the sultan
Asshurbanipal and did magic and forecast events by scanning the lurid
deeps of the stone, into which no eyes but his could look unblinded.
And men called the stone the Fire of Asshurbanipal, in honor of the
king.

"But evil came upon the kingdom and men cried out that it was the curse
of the djinn, and the sultan in great fear bade Xuthltan take the gem
and cast it into the cavern from which he had taken it, lest worse ill
befall them.

"Yet it was not the magician's will to give up the gem wherein he read
strange secrets of pre-Adamite days, and he fled to the rebel city of
Kara-Shehr, where soon civil war broke out and men strove with one
another to possess the gem. Then the king who ruled the city, coveting
the stone, seized the magician and put him to death by torture, and in
this very room he watched him die; with the gem in his hand the king
sat upon the throne--even as he has sat throughout the centuries--even
as now he sits!"

The Arab's finger stabbed at the moldering bones on the marble throne,
and the wild desert men blenched; even Nureddin's own scoundrels
recoiled, catching their breath, but the shaykh showed no sign of
perturbation.

"As Xuthltan died," continued the old Bedouin, "he cursed the stone
whose magic had not saved him, and he shrieked aloud the fearful words
which undid the spell he had put upon the demon in the cavern, and set
the monster free. And crying out on the forgotten gods, Cthulhu and
Koth and Yog-Sothoth, and all the pre-Adamite Dwellers in the black
cities under the sea and the caverns of the earth, he called upon
them to take back that which was theirs, and with his dying breath
pronounced doom on the false king, and that doom was that the king
should sit on his throne holding in his hand the Fire of Asshurbanipal
until the thunder of Judgment Day.

"Thereat the great stone cried out as a live thing cries, and the king
and his soldiers saw a black cloud spinning up from the floor, and
out of the cloud blew a fetid wind, and out of the wind came a grisly
shape which stretched forth fearsome paws and laid them on the king,
who shriveled and died at their touch. And the soldiers fled screaming,
and all the people of the city ran forth wailing into the desert, where
they perished or gained through the wastes to the far oasis towns.
Kara-Shehr lay silent and deserted, the haunt of the lizard and the
jackal. And when some of the desert-people ventured into the city they
found the king dead on his throne, clutching the blazing gem, but they
dared not lay hand upon it, for they knew the demon lurked near to
guard it through all the ages--as he lurks near even as we stand here."

The warriors shuddered involuntarily and glanced about, and Nureddin
said, "Why did he not come forth when the Franks entered the chamber?
Is he deaf, that the sound of the combat has not awakened him?"

"We have not touched the gem," answered the old Bedouin, "nor had the
Franks molested it. Men have looked on it and lived; but no mortal may
touch it and survive."

       *       *       *       *       *

Nureddin started to speak, gazed at the stubborn, uneasy faces and
realized the futility of argument. His attitude changed abruptly.

"I am master here," he snapped, dropping a hand to his holster. "I have
not sweat and bled for this gem to be balked at the last by groundless
fears! Stand back, all! Let any man cross me at the peril of his head!"

He faced them, his eyes blazing, and they fell back, cowed by the force
of his ruthless personality. He strode boldly up the marble steps,
and the Arabs caught their breath, recoiling toward the door; Yar
Ali, conscious at last, groaned dismally. God! thought Steve, what a
barbaric scene!--bound captives on the dust-heaped floor, wild warriors
clustered about, gripping their weapons, the raw acrid scent of blood
and burnt powder still fouling the air, corpses strewn in a horrid
welter of blood, brains and entrails--and on the dais, the hawk-faced
shaykh, oblivious to all except the evil crimson glow in the skeleton
fingers that rested on the marble throne.

A tense silence gripped all as Nureddin stretched forth his hand
slowly, as if hypnotized by the throbbing crimson light. And in Steve's
subconsciousness there shuddered a dim echo, as of something vast and
loathsome waking suddenly from an age-long slumber. The American's
eyes moved instinctively toward the grim cyclopean walls. The jewel's
glow had altered strangely; it burned a deeper, darker red, angry and
menacing.

"Heart of all evil," murmured the shaykh, "how many princes died for
thee in the Beginnings of Happenings? Surely the blood of kings throbs
in thee. The sultans and the princesses and the generals who wore
thee, they are dust and are forgotten, but thou blazest with majesty
undimmed, fire of the world----"

Nureddin seized the stone. A shuddery wail broke from the Arabs, cut
through by a sharp inhuman cry. To Steve it seemed, horribly, that the
great jewel had cried out like a living thing! The stone slipped from
the shaykh's hand. Nureddin might have dropped it; to Steve it looked
as though it leaped convulsively, as a live thing might leap. It rolled
from the dais, bounding from step to step, with Nureddin springing
after it, cursing as his clutching hand missed it. It struck the floor,
veered sharply, and despite the deep dust, rolled like a revolving ball
of fire toward the back wall. Nureddin was close upon it--it struck the
wall--the shaykh's hand reached for it.

A scream of mortal fear ripped the tense silence. Without warning
the solid wall had opened. Out of the black wall that gaped there,
a tentacle shot and gripped the shaykh's body as a python girdles
its victim, and jerked him headlong into the darkness. And then the
wall showed blank and solid once more; only from within sounded a
hideous, high-pitched, muffled screaming that chilled the blood of
the listeners. Howling wordlessly, the Arabs stampeded, jammed in a
battling, screeching mass in the doorway, tore through and raced madly
down the wide stairs.

Steve and Yar Ali, lying helplessly, heard the frenzied clamor of
their flight fade away into the distance, and gazed in dumb horror at
the grim wall. The shrieks had faded into a more horrific silence.
Holding their breath, they heard suddenly a sound that froze the blood
in their veins--the soft sliding of metal or stone in a groove. At the
same time the hidden door began to open, and Steve caught a glimmer in
the blackness that might have been the glitter of monstrous eyes. He
closed his own eyes; he dared not look upon whatever horror slunk from
that hideous black well. He knew that there are strains the human brain
cannot stand, and every primitive instinct in his soul cried out to
him that this thing was nightmare and lunacy. He sensed that Yar Ali
likewise closed his eyes, and the two lay like dead men.

       *       *       *       *       *

Clarney heard no sound, but he sensed the presence of a horrific evil
too grisly for human comprehension--of an Invader from Outer Gulfs and
far black reaches of cosmic being. A deadly cold pervaded the chamber,
and Steve felt the glare of inhuman eyes sear through his closed lids
and freeze his consciousness. If he looked, if he opened his eyes, he
knew stark black madness would be his instant lot.

[Illustration: "If he looked, if he opened his eyes, he knew that stark
black madness would be his instant lot."]

He felt a soul-shakingly foul breath against his face and knew that the
monster was bending close above him, but he lay like a man frozen in a
nightmare. He clung to one thought: neither he nor Yar Ali had touched
the jewel this horror guarded.

Then he no longer smelled the foul odor, the coldness in the air
grew appreciably less, and he heard again the secret door slide in
its groove. The fiend was returning to its hiding-place. Not all the
legions of Hell could have prevented Steve's eyes from opening a
trifle. He had only a glimpse as the hidden door slid to--and that one
glimpse was enough to drive all consciousness from his brain. Steve
Clarney, iron-nerved adventurer, fainted for the only time in his
checkered life.

How long he lay there Steve never knew, but it could not have been
long, for he was roused by Yar Ali's whisper, "Lie still, _sahib_, a
little shifting of my body and I can reach thy cords with my teeth."

Steve felt the Afghan's powerful teeth at work on his bonds, and as he
lay with his face jammed into the thick dust, and his wounded shoulder
began to throb agonizingly--he had forgotten it until now--he began to
gather the wandering threads of his consciousness, and it all came
back to him. How much, he wondered dazedly, had been the nightmares of
delirium, born from suffering and the thirst that caked his throat? The
fight with the Arabs had been real--the bonds and the wounds showed
that--but the grisly doom of the shaykh--the thing that had crept out
of the black entrance in the wall--surely that had been a figment of
delirium. Nureddin had fallen into a well or pit of some sort--Steve
felt his hands were free and he rose to a sitting posture, fumbling for
a pocket-knife the Arabs had overlooked. He did not look up or about
the chamber as he slashed the cords that bound his ankles, and then
freed Yar Ali, working awkwardly because his left arm was stiff and
useless.

"Where are the Bedouins?" he asked, as the Afghan rose, lifting him to
his feet.

"Allah, _sahib_," whispered Yar Ali, "are you mad? Have you forgotten?
Let us go quickly before the djinn returns!"

"It was a nightmare," muttered Steve. "Look--the jewel is back on the
throne----" His voice died out. Again that red glow throbbed about
the ancient throne, reflecting from the moldering skull; again in
the outstretched finger-bones pulsed the Fire of Asshurbanipal. But
at the foot of the throne lay another object that had not been there
before--the severed head of Nureddin el Mekru stared sightlessly up
at the gray light filtering through the stone ceiling. The bloodless
lips were drawn back from the teeth in a ghastly grin, the staring eyes
mirrored an intolerable horror. In the thick dust of the floor three
spoors showed--one of the shaykh's where he had followed the red jewel
as it rolled to the wall, and above it two other sets of tracks, coming
to the throne and returning to the wall--vast, shapeless tracks, as of
splayed feet, taloned and gigantic, neither human nor animal.

"My God!" choked Steve. "It was true--and the Thing--the Thing I
saw----"

       *       *       *       *       *

Steve remembered the flight from that chamber as a rushing nightmare,
in which he and his companion hurtled headlong down an endless stair
that was a gray well of fear, raced blindly through dusty silent
chambers, past the glowering idol in the mighty hall and into the
blazing light of the desert sun, where they fell slavering, fighting
for breath.

Again Steve was roused by the Afridi's voice: "_Sahib, sahib_, in the
Name of Allah the Compassionate, our luck has turned!"

Steve looked at his companion as a man might look in a trance. The big
Afghan's garments were in tatters, and blood-soaked. He was stained
with dust and caked with blood, and his voice was a croak. But his eyes
were alight with hope and he pointed with a trembling finger.

"In the shade of yon ruined wall!" he croaked, striving to moisten his
blackened lips. "_Allah il allah!_ The horses of the men we killed!
With canteens and food-pouches at the saddle-horns! Those dogs fled
without halting for the steeds of their comrades!"

New life surged up into Steve's bosom and he rose, staggering.

"Out of here," he mumbled. "Out of here, quick!"

Like dying men they stumbled to the horses, tore them loose and climbed
fumblingly into the saddles.

"We'll lead the spare mounts," croaked Steve, and Yar Ali nodded
emphatic agreement.

"Belike we shall need them ere we sight the coast."

Though their tortured nerves screamed for the water that swung in
canteens at the saddle-horns, they turned the mounts aside and, swaying
in the saddle, rode like flying corpses down the long sandy street
of Kara-Shehr, between the ruined palaces and the crumbling columns,
crossed the fallen wall and swept out into the desert. Not once did
either glance back toward that black pile of ancient horror, nor did
either speak until the ruins faded into the hazy distance. Then and
only then did they draw rein and ease their thirst.

"_Allah il allah!_" said Yar Ali piously. "Those dogs have beaten me
until it is as though every bone in my body were broken. Dismount, I
beg thee, _sahib_, and let me probe for that accursed bullet, and dress
thy shoulder to the best of my meager ability."

While this was going on, Yar Ali spoke, avoiding his friend's eye, "You
said, _sahib_, you said something about--about seeing? What saw ye, in
Allah's name?"

A strong shudder shook the American's steely frame.

"You didn't look when--when the--the Thing put back the jewel in the
skeleton's hand and left Nureddin's head on the dais?"

"By Allah, not I!" swore Yar Ali. "My eyes were as closed as if they
had been welded together by the molten irons of Satan!"

Steve made no reply until the comrades had once more swung into the
saddle and started on their long trek for the coast, which, with spare
horses, food, water and weapons, they had a good chance to reach.

"I looked," the American said somberly. "I wish I had not; I know
I'll dream about it for the rest of my life. I had only a glance; I
couldn't describe it as a man describes an earthly thing. God help me,
it wasn't earthly or sane either. Mankind isn't the first owner of the
earth; there were Beings here before his coming--and now, survivals
of hideously ancient epochs. Maybe spheres of alien dimensions press
unseen on this material universe today. Sorcerers have called up
sleeping devils before now and controlled them with magic. It is not
unreasonable to suppose an Assyrian magician could invoke an elemental
demon out of the earth to avenge him and guard something that must have
come out of Hell in the first place.

"I'll try to tell you what I glimpsed; then we'll never speak of
it again. It was gigantic and black and shadowy; it was a hulking
monstrosity that walked upright like a man, but it was like a toad,
too, and it was winged and tentacled. I saw only its back; if I'd seen
the front of it--its face--I'd have undoubtedly lost my mind. The old
Arab was right; God help us, it was the monster that Xuthltan called
up out of the dark blind caverns of the earth to guard the Fire of
Asshurbanipal!"



*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The fire of Asshurbanipal" ***


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