Part 2

"Of Duar? No! I know your history--the part known to men--too well! You are no evil ravisher or torturer of women. Of Duar the Accursed--perhaps--a little! There may be demons in your shadow I care not to see!"

"Then in the Names of the Gods, get me something to eat!" swore the ex-captive. "I starve, woman!"

He flung the sword carelessly on the silken coverlets of the royal couch.

* * * * *

A drowsy hand-maid, eyes still blurred from sleep, appeared in answer to the imperial summons on the bell-rope. Evidently she surmised the outstretched guard at the portals was in a state of slumber instead of unconsciousness, for her features registered no alarm until they espied the giant form of the adventurer sprawled in a royal chair. To her fear-stricken eyes and gaping mouth Nione said: "Food, immediately, for myself--you understand? And if you breathe one word you go back to slavery! Hasten."

"Or I slit your throat!" added Duar lazily.

The startled servant vanished in a whirlwind of terror.

"I ordered food for you in the cells," stated the Queen, ominously. "Were my guards afraid to serve it?"

"I did not like the banquet hall," observed the late captive. He regarded her through lowered eyelids. Was this ready acquiescence some feminine trick?

When the food arrived, Duar commanded the slave to sit on a divan in the corner. He trusted little to a servant's tongue, fearful or not, and if he perceived the sigh of relief Nione emitted over the enforced chaperonage, he chose not to comment on it. When the tender meat of the fowl's flesh was devoured and washed down by the white wine of Ygoth's slopes, he shoved away the serving-tray and reached for the sword he had won.

"And now?" questioned the hostage Queen.

"We pay a visit, _you_ and I, to the object of my visit--a rare jewel, if truth be told. And perhaps a demon."

"A--a demon?"

"Aye. The plagued land appears to be surfeited with them. Faith, I've for ever expected them, never to find them, and found them where I never expected. But this night I have been made certain by good authority. Nione, if a thing was stolen from you that you never knew you possessed, or counted among the values of your kingdom, would it be robbery?"

The Queen was mystified and a little angered, as puzzled women so often are.

"You speak in riddles, O slave-king. Though you hold my person you cannot make a fool of me. Do you know there is not one chance in a million of your leaving Ygoth alive? And not one chance in ten million of your crossing the boundaries? You have my person, Duar, but not my kingdom!"

"Ah!" exclaimed Duar meaningly, "a kingdom lacking a king."

Nione was hushed into apprehensive silence. The fear-stricken maid trembled in her corner. The erstwhile captive continued his narrow-eyed scrutiny and a nervous quiet reigned before he spoke again.

"Nione, have you ever heard of the Rose of Gaon?"

"I have fed you and offered you freedom but I will not guess at your riddles!"

"Spitfire! Have you heard of the Black Tower of Ygoth?"

The Queen shuddered. "Who has not, O Duar? The most feared spot in all my land, shunned by all! Would I could destroy it, but the ancient laws and the commands of the priests forbid. My subjects avert their gaze as they pass, and even the birds of the air will not circle above those ominous turrets. What seek you in the Black Tower?"

"Fortune! Power to raise a kingdom once more!"

"A kingdom from the lost souls of dead murderers?"

"Aye. I know of your customs. If a man, or a woman at times, commits a crime so foul that they cannot even be awarded the punishment of a clean death by sword or of slow starvation in the Pits, the ancient law of Ygoth ordains the priests shall march them to the entrance of the Black Tower. There they are left to some inevitable and horrible doom; inevitable, for they never return from beyond the grim portals. The secrets of the Tower are lost in antiquity. Only the legends of your priests, who themselves have never entered, hint at the unknown fates of the condemned who were driven within the walls. A calloused criminal may laugh at the sword, but no human heart will fail to beat a little faster at the threat of the unknown danger."

"They say," whispered Nione, "the Black Tower stood alone when all this land was barren and my forefathers who founded the dynasty of Krall were yet unborn! It is a hateful place where even a shrub or vine will not crawl from the earth. I care not to look upon it."

"And dim the glory of your eyes," commented Duar pleasantly. "Yet this night we visit therein."

"We? Do you think you can drag _me_ there, of all places, like a common wench?"

"Or carry. You are my password. Ygoth is too well patrolled, by your own word, even for me."

"The first guard we meet will imprison you!"

"Not with the ring of Nione before his eyes--and a whisper or two. He will elevate his eyebrows as we pass and comment to himself that even a Queen must have diversions."

Nione's cheeks flamed. "Never! No man in all my kingdom would ever think so of me."

Duar laughed. "Men are always men, even when thinking of a Queen!"

"Beast! Slave! Barbarian!"

"For the moment, 'King.' But to continue. An unfrocked priest, dying on a battlefield, told me of a jewel called the Rose of Gaon that lay within the walls of the Black Tower of Ygoth, a jewel magnificent in size and beauty. He said that I, being Duar the Accursed, could pass in safety through the chamber of the hopeless dead who have been condemned there and claim the stone. He was a vengeful creature and I believe he meant to send me to my death even as he lay dying. Perhaps he did, for here I am. Now you know why I came to Ygoth. If the words he spoke were true, with that jewel I could buy enough men to conquer a new kingdom. Slave I may have been, but there is royal blood in my veins and I cannot rest unless I am a king!"

* * * * *

His last words were delivered in such impassioned tones that the servant girl was hardly able to stifle a scream. Nione's gaze searched the depths of his blue eyes and moved on to wander over the scars of his ragged person.

"It seems," she observed, "the Queen is dethroned. But I have my pride--and courage. My guards will not break down the doors to find me screaming like a street-wench in your arms. Maid, bring cloaks!"

"I wonder," mused Duar aloud, "if you'd scream."

Twice in their journey through the streets they were halted by an inquisitive night patrol, but each time the sight of the Queen's personal ring gave them free passage and each time Duar chuckled quietly at the amazed expressions on the faces of the captains confronted by the royal seal. The second time, as the patrol with its dim hand-lights passed on, he laughed aloud. Nione deliberately kicked his shin in a most unqueenly manner.

"If a Queen is ridiculed, no one laughs!" she reminded him fiercely.

"You are the most marvelous of Queens!" swore Duar devotedly.

At the northwestern corner of the city of Ygoth, where the ancient walls rose against the invaders of centuries ago and the possible ones of tomorrow, stood the Black Tower, alone in all its majestic solitude, with no other building or dwelling to share its vicinity. No one cared to live within the shadows of its evil memories. Once in a decade the feet of men approached its portals carrying some drugged wretch to be cast inside the doors that stood always open, like the gates of Hell; some creature in the form of man who had committed a monstrous crime. What horrible fate they met within or below the black walls no living soul ever knew, and only the priests guessed. None ever returned from the forbidding, evil tower whose ebony turrets rose against the pure sky like the clutching fingers of a demon from the lowest pits.

Once close to the grim walls the woman who was a Queen and the man who had been a king halted in silence to survey their goal. Not even a bat stirred the ghostly stillness. All was darkness, still and remote. Here in the shadow of the tower the moonlight was gone as if a hand from Hell had stricken the silvery orb from the heavens. A monument to the shadowy God of Death.

"Wait for me here, O Nione," said Duar. "If I come back I'll bring you a king's ransom--if I find you here to lead me again through the guards. If I find you not--I'll come through the guards alone and drape the dead demon over your palace walls!"

"My will prevailing, I will be here."

"I'll bring back a share of the Rose for you," promised Duar as he vanished into the night. An answering whisper came from behind, momentarily checking his stride: "Bring back yourself, O Duar!"

* * * * *

At the threshold, where the great dark portals swung wide, he paused in a fruitless attempt to peer down the long flight of carven steps he knew lay before him. The dim reflection of moonlight showed only the gaping entrance and the rubble and debris of passing centuries; the time-worn descent to unknown punishment was blotted from the eye. Barbarian though he was, Duar muttered a prayer to the Seven Gods before he descended the topmost step, after which he ventured downward, surely the only man in eons to come upright and not falling in screaming terror from the hands of executioner priests.

He counted the steps. One hundred, one hundred and fifty--how far into the earth did they go? He cursed his lack of foresight in not bringing a torch. A minute later his outthrust foot struck level floor and he felt his way cautiously along a damp wall, testing each step lest he cast himself into an unseen pit. The wall was carven curiously; after feeling some of the figures beneath his fingertips he was almost glad he had neglected a torch.

Abruptly he felt the Force. It struck him, body and face, like a blast of hot wind from the deserts. First obstructing, then suddenly altering, it impeded his progress little as it seemed to hurry him onward. He became conscious he was almost running in a desperate effort to keep up with the passage of the air, or Force.

"By the Gods!" he muttered through set teeth. "This is an undignified way to receive me into Hell!"

The passage ended with startling suddenness; he was in a great chamber lit by a ruddy glow. The glow came from an object lying upon a huge stone, carved as a perfect square and resting in the exact center of the great circular hall. Duar advanced cautiously with drawn sword toward the source of the light. Several times he stumbled clumsily over irregular heaps of rubbish on the floor, and once it seemed to him he only managed to keep from falling by the intentness of his gaze on the lurid fire before him.

Now he was wading, like one who crosses a mountain torrent breast-high, and the Force was roaring in his ears until his temples hurt. It pressed on his head and shoulders, inexorably, urging him to lie down and rest. Tearing his eyes from the glory of the light, he glanced about, seeking a level spot on which to relax. The horror he beheld smote his weary brain back to activity. He was treading over the _remains of countless skeletons_!

Here lay the answer of the destiny of the wretched culprits condemned to the Black Tower. Hundreds upon hundreds of them, back through the centuries, had been thrust down the dark stairway to feel the Force and hasten onward to their doom. Those who sat down to rest rested there for ever. An effort to retreat would be like forcing a stone wall with bare hands; the demon power was too strong. Always must the victim proceed to the light. The strength and will-power of each was denoted by the distance he or she covered toward the beckoning light before they succumbed to the baleful Force. The long-dead bones reflected dimly the weird glow of the goal they never had reached.

"A curse on you!" roared Duar through the deathly silence of the death chamber, before he realized he was cursing the object of his quest. For the light he approached was coming from the heart of the Rose of Gaon! It lay on a black table of stone, its size as large as Duar's clenched fist. A magnificent ruby of unnatural circumference, it shone clear and glowing with a life of its own, shedding supernatural rays over the dead bones of the underground tomb; the ransom of a thousand kings, but so great in its dreadful power that no human could own it without sorcery. The barbarian king stood looking upon its baleful beauty, and even as his heart surged within his breast he knew it was not for him.

The demon Force struck him squarely. For the fraction of a second he was back on his heels as his sword cut only the thin air before him. Ferocious, snarling, the barbarian fought against an intangible substance he could not see, while the weight of the unknown Thing pressed about his throat until his breath came in uneven gasps. Furiously he cursed and struggled before the unseen power as weakness flowed into his veins and his muscles became lax with fatigue. His vision encompassed only the dim light of the jewel and the litter of decayed corpses about, but he battled an invisible monster of fangs and claws. Long red furrows appeared on his arms and chest, and brutal welts arose on his head and shoulders.

Duar, the king, knew he was beaten, but Duar the barbarian knew that only when he died he was dead. The primitive instinct kept him upright, thrusting into the dark cloud that had risen before him with a last desperate effort. Still, he recognized doom. No mortal man could withstand the powers of the demon of the Black Tower, and well he knew it. The end was inevitable; a barbarian king would join the corpses of the underground graveyard. So Duar slashed thin air with a useless weapon and prepared to die.

* * * * *

A faint glimmer of sparks in motion caught his eye. They appeared at his left elbow, not close enough to interfere with sword-play. Shar!

"I cannot fail you now, my lord," came the well-remembered tones he had heard in the Pits. "Even though you fight for that which is not yours and the body of another woman, I still support you and your childish desires. You cannot go in safety now unless you destroy the Rose--and the powers of the demon with it! Strike the Rose! Strike before the Hell-spawn destroys the spark in you which belongs to the Ancient One!"

[Illustration: "Destroy the Rose--and the powers of the Demon with it."]

The heavy, two-handed sword slashed into the very center of the baleful jewel reposing on its ebony pedestal. If a mountain had collapsed the thunder could have been no greater. Staggering, Duar perceived the precious fragments flying into a thousand disintegrated bits, while death winds blew into his face and the walls shook with their mad forces. Even the corpses seemed to rustle and stir as the elemental being that had guarded the Rose of Gaon departed the Black Tower for ever.

Bit by bit the skeletons were crumbling into dust, released from the eternal slavery of the fatal Rose. Through their shifting dust Duar stumbled toward the passageway. The shimmering form of his mystifying ally stood in his path; he halted, eager to depart but unwilling to desert even a sorceress in the loathsome chamber holding the remains of dead felons.

"I owe you thanks. My eyes were blinded like those who came before me. Alone, I would not have thought of striking the jewel."

"No mortal man could have touched that stone, O Duar! It was not even a jewel--but the heart of a demon. If the blood of the Elder Race did not flow in your veins you could never have approached so near to it."

"What is your interest in me, witch-woman?" queried the barbarian, stubbornly. "Why did you free me in the Pits? I have no friends. I am Duar, the Accursed! I fight for no cause but my own, and my only power is the sword I hold!"

"You are mistaken!" Shar's voice rose to a higher pitch with the eloquence of her plea. "Duar, you admit that, even to yourself, your life has been a mystery. I can explain the mystery and bring back to you your past, the age-old past when you were a priest of the Elders and all these peoples now inhabiting the earth were only things crawling in its mud. Of all the Elders I am the last. Only you, Duar, have some of the ancient blood, mixed with mankind's, in your human flesh. I watched you throughout your re-incarnations until, at last, I determined to arouse your sub-consciousness to the point where you could remember. I need your help! You were a priest of the Race once--you can be again! We will rule again, with the aid of the ancient powers, supreme and undefeatable, over the entire world! Think, my lord! Remember!"

Once again the witch-fires burned in his brain, rose and swirled and fell, and when his brain revolted against the torture of their passage his sight was cleared. All he could recall was the haunted underground pit, dust-laden and befouled with cursed souls.

"I am Duar."

Shar sighed. "Go then, Duar. When you are reborn I will come again--and again! Some day----" Her voice grew dim.

Heedless, he rushed up the stone stairs, in the direction no man had ever trod, to where Nione waited in sobbing anxiety, up to where the kingdom of Ygoth lay before his regal eyes. He knew she waited for him, long before he saw her silhouetted against the moon as she placed a hesitant foot on the first of the steps leading to the unknown depths. Exultation flooded his heart. She had been willing to follow him to a nameless death! What more could a barbarian wish than a powerful kingdom and a beautiful Queen?

But there came a whisper to his ears as he emerged from the haunted tower, a thin, ghostly strain from the echoes of his past:

"O Duar, you fool! You who could have possessed the world, taking but one little kingdom for yourself!"