"Robert E. Howard - Conan - The People of the Black Circle" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

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THE PEOPLE OF THE BLACK CIRCLE
A Conan Story
by Robert E. Howard

1 DEATH STRIKES A KING
The king of Vendhya was dying. Through the hot, stifling night the temple gongs boomed and
the conchs roared. Their clamor was a faint echo in the gold-domed chamber where Bunda Chand
struggled on the velvet-cushioned dais. Beads of sweat glistened on his dark skin; his fingers
twisted the gold-worked fabric beneath him. He was young; no spear had touched him, no poison
lurked in his wine. But his veins stood out like blue cords on his temples, and his eyes dilated
with the nearness of death. Trembling slave-girls knelt at the foot of the dais, and leaning down
to him, watching him with passionate intensity, was his sister, the Devi Yasmina. With her was the
wazam, a noble grown old in the royal court.
She threw up her head in a gusty gesture of wrath and despair as the thunder of the distant
drums reached her ears.
"The priests and their clamor!" she exclaimed. "They are no wiser than the leeches who are
helpless! Nay, he dies and none can say why. He is dying now - and I stand here helpless, who
would burn the whole city and spill the blood of thousands to save him."
"Not a man of Ayodhya but would die in his place, if it might be, Devi," answered the wazam.
"This poison--"
"I tell you it is not poison!" she cried. "Since his birth he has been guarded so closely
that the cleverest poisoners of the East could not reach him. Five skulls bleaching on the Tower
of the Kites can testify to attempts which were made - and which failed. As you well know, there
are ten men and ten women whose sole duty is to taste his food and wine, and fifty armed warriors
guard his chamber as they guard it now. No, it is not poison; it is sorcery - black, ghastly magic-
-"
She ceased as the king spoke; his livid lips did not move, and there was no recognition in
his glassy eyes. But his voice rose in an eery call, indistinct and far away, as if called to her
from beyond vast, wind-blown gulfs.
"Yasmina! Yasmina! My sister, where are you? I can not find you. All is darkness, and the
roaring of great winds!"
"Brother!" cried Yasmina, catching his limp hand in a convulsive grasp. "I am here! Do you
not know me--"
Her voice died at the utter vacancy of his face. A low confused moan waned from his mouth.
The slave-girls at the foot of the dais whimpered with fear, and Yasmina beat her breast in
anguish.
In another part of the city a maii stood in a latticed balcony overlooking a long street in
which torches tossed luridly, smokily revealing upturned dark faces and the whites of gleaming
eyes. A long-drawn wailing rose from the multitude.
The man shrugged his broad shoulders and turned back into the arabesque chamber. He was a
tall man, compactly built, and richly clad.
"The king is not yet dead, but the dirge is sounded," he said to another man who sat cross-
legged on a mat in a corner. This man was clad in a brown camel-hair robe and sandals, and a green
turban was on his head. His expression was tranquil, his gaze impersonal.
"The people know he will never see another dawn," this man answered.
The first speaker favored him with a long, searching stare.
"What I can not understand," he said, "is why I have had to wait so long for your masters to
strike. If they have slain the king now, why could they not have slain him months ago?"