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38 pages

English

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One of the first "sword and sorcery" fantasy classics written by Robert E. Howard featuring Conan the Barbarian, this thrilling tale centers around a regal queen who rules over a small nation -- and her ruthless twin sister, who will do anything to usurp the leadership role. Can Conan, the chief of the queen's guards, foil this plot before it's too late?

Sujets

Fantasy (canción de Mariah Carey)

Fantasy

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 mars 2013
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781775562160
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

A WITCH SHALL BE BORN
* * *
ROBERT E. HOWARD

*
A Witch Shall Be Born First published in 1934 ISBN 978-1-77556-216-0 © 2013 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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1 - The Blood-Red Crescent 2 - The Tree of Death 3 - A Letter to Nemedia 4 - Wolves of the Desert 5 - The Voice from the Crystal 6 - The Vulture's Wings
1 - The Blood-Red Crescent
*
Taramis, queen of Khauran, awakened from a dream-haunted slumber to asilence that seemed more like the stillness of nighted catacombs thanthe normal quiet of a sleeping place. She lay staring into the darkness,wondering why the candles in their golden candelabra had gone out. Aflecking of stars marked a gold-barred casement that lent noillumination to the interior of the chamber. But as Taramis lay there,she became aware of a spot of radiance glowing in the darkness beforeher. She watched, puzzled. It grew and its intensity deepened as itexpanded, a widening disk of lurid light hovering against the darkvelvet hangings of the opposite wall. Taramis caught her breath,starting up to a sitting position. A dark object was visible in thatcircle of light— a human head .
In a sudden panic the queen opened her lips to cry out for her maids;then she checked herself. The glow was more lurid, the head more vividlylimned. It was a woman's head, small, delicately molded, superblypoised, with a high-piled mass of lustrous black hair. The face grewdistinct as she stared—and it was the sight of this face which frozethe cry in Taramis's throat. The features were her own! She might havebeen looking into a mirror which subtly altered her reflection, lendingit a tigerish gleam of eye, a vindictive curl of lip.
'Ishtar!' gasped Taramis. 'I am bewitched!'
Appallingly, the apparition spoke, and its voice was like honeyed venom.
'Bewitched? No, sweet sister! Here is no sorcery.'
'Sister?' stammered the bewildered girl. 'I have no sister.'
'You never had a sister?' came the sweet, poisonously mocking voice.'Never a twin sister whose flesh was as soft as yours to caress orhurt?'
'Why, once I had a sister,' answered Taramis, still convinced that shewas in the grip of some sort of nightmare. 'But she died.'
The beautiful face in the disk was convulsed with the aspect of a fury;so hellish became its expression that Taramis, cowering back, halfexpected to see snaky locks writhe hissing about the ivory brow.
'You lie!' The accusation was spat from between the snarling red lips.'She did not die! Fool! Oh, enough of this mummery! Look—and let yoursight be blasted!'
Light ran suddenly along the hangings like flaming serpents, andincredibly the candles in the golden sticks flared up again. Taramiscrouched on her velvet couch, her lithe legs flexed beneath her, staringwide-eyed at the pantherish figure which posed mockingly before her. Itwas as if she gazed upon another Taramis, identical with herself inevery contour of feature and limb, yet animated by an alien and evilpersonality. The face of this stranger waif reflected the opposite ofevery characteristic the countenance of the queen denoted. Lust andmystery sparkled in her scintillant eyes, cruelty lurked in the curl ofher full red lips. Each movement of her supple body was subtlysuggestive. Her coiffure imitated that of the queen's, on her feet weregilded sandals such as Taramis wore in her boudoir. The sleeveless,low-necked silk tunic, girdled at the waist with a cloth-of-goldcincture, was a duplicate of the queen's night-garment.
'Who are you?' gasped Taramis, an icy chill she could not explaincreeping along her spine. 'Explain your presence before I call myladies-in-waiting to summon the guard!'
'Scream until the roof beams crack,' callously answered the stranger.'Your sluts will not wake till dawn, though the palace spring intoflames about them. Your guardsmen will not hear your squeals; they havebeen sent out of this wing of the palace.'
'What!' exclaimed Taramis, stiffening with outraged majesty. 'Who daredgive my guardsmen such a command?'
'I did, sweet sister,' sneered the other girl. 'A little while ago,before I entered. They thought it was their darling adored queen. Ha!How beautifully I acted the part! With what imperious dignity, softenedby womanly sweetness, did I address the great louts who knelt in theirarmor and plumed helmets!'
Taramis felt as if a stifling net of bewilderment were being drawn abouther.
'Who are you?' she cried desperately. 'What madness is this? Why do youcome here?'
'Who am I?' There was the spite of a she-cobra's hiss in the softresponse. The girl stepped to the edge of the couch, grasped the queen'swhite shoulders with fierce fingers, and bent to glare full into thestartled eyes of Taramis. And under the spell of that hypnotic glare,the queen forgot to resent the unprecedented outrage of violent handslaid on regal flesh.
'Fool!' gritted the girl between her teeth. 'Can you ask? Can youwonder? I am Salome!'
'Salome!' Taramis breathed the word, and the hairs prickled on her scalpas she realized the incredible, numbing truth of the statement. 'Ithought you died within the hour of your birth,' she said feebly.
'So thought many,' answered the woman who called herself Salome. 'Theycarried me into the desert to die, damn them! I, a mewing, puling babewhose life was so young it was scarcely the flicker of a candle. And doyou know why they bore me forth to die?'
'I—I have heard the story—' faltered Taramis.
Salome laughed fiercely, and slapped her bosom. The low-necked tunicleft the upper parts of her firm breasts bare, and between them thereshone a curious mark—a crescent, red as blood.
'The mark of the witch!' cried Taramis, recoiling.
'Aye!' Salome's laughter was dagger-edged with hate. 'The curse of thekings of Khauran! Aye, they tell the tale in the market-places, withwagging beards and rolling eyes, the pious fools! They tell how thefirst queen of our line had traffic with a fiend of darkness and borehim a daughter who lives in foul legendry to this day. And thereafter ineach century a girl baby was born into the Askhaurian dynasty, with ascarlet half-moon between her breasts, that signified her destiny.
'"Every century a witch shall be born." So ran the ancient curse. And soit has come to pass. Some were slain at birth, as they sought to slayme. Some walked the earth as witches, proud daughters of Khauran, withthe moon of hell burning upon their ivory bosoms. Each was named Salome.I too am Salome. It was always Salome, the witch. It will always beSalome, the witch, even when the mountains of ice have roared down fromthe pole and ground the civilizations to ruin, and a new world has risenfrom the ashes and dust—even then there shall be Salomes to walk theearth, to trap men's hearts by their sorcery, to dance before the kingsof the world, to see the heads of the wise men fall at their pleasure.'
'But—but you—' stammered Taramis.
'I?' The scintillant eyes burned like dark fires of mystery. 'Theycarried me into the desert far from the city, and laid me naked on thehot sand, under the flaming sun. And then they rode away and left me forthe jackals and the vultures and the desert wolves.
'But the life in me was stronger than the life in common folk, for itpartakes of the essence of the forces that seethe in the black gulfsbeyond mortal ken. The hours passed, and the sun slashed down like themolten flames of hell, but I did not die—aye, something of that tormentI remember, faintly and far away, as one remembers a dim, formlessdream. Then there were camels, and yellow-skinned men who wore silkrobes and spoke in a weird tongue. Strayed from the caravan road, theypassed close by, and their leader saw me, and recognized the scarletcrescent on my bosom. He took me up and gave me life.
'He was a magician from far Khitai, returning to his native kingdomafter a journey to Stygia. He took me with him to purple-toweringPaikang, its minarets rising amid the vine-festooned jungles of bamboo,and there I grew to womanhood under his teaching. Age had steeped himdeep in black wisdom, not weakened his powers of evil. Many things hetaught me—'
She paused, smiling enigmatically, with wicked mystery gleaming in herdark eyes. Then she tossed her head.
'He drove me from him at last, saying that I was but a common witch inspite of his teachings, and not fit to command the mighty sorcery hewould have taught me. He would have made me queen of the world and ruledthe nations through me, he said, but I was only a harlot of darkness.But what of it? I could never endure to seclude myself in a goldentower, and spend the long hours staring into a crystal globe, mumblingover incantations written on serpent's skin in the blood of virgins,poring over musty volumes in forgotten languages.
'He said I was but an earthly sprite, knowing naught of the deeper gulfsof cosmic sorcery. Well, this world contains all I desire—power, andpomp, and glittering pageantry, handsome men and soft women for myparamours and my slaves. He had told me who I was, of the curse and myheritage. I have returned to take that to which I have as much right asyou. Now it is mine by right of possession.'
'What do you mean?' Taramis sprang up and faced her sister, stung out ofher bewilderment and fright. 'Do you imagine that by drugging a few ofmy maids and tricking a few of my guardsmen you have established a claimto the throne of Khauran? Do not forget that I am Queen of Khauran! Ishall give yo