SHADOWS IN ZAMBOULA

By Robert E. Howard

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird TalesNovember 1935. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

1 A Drum Begins

'Peril hides in the house of Aram Baksh!'

The speaker's voice quivered with earnestness and his lean, black-nailedfingers clawed at Conan's mightily muscled arm as he croaked hiswarning. He was a wiry, sun-burnt man with a straggling black beard, andhis ragged garments proclaimed him a nomad. He looked smaller and meanerthan ever in contrast to the giant Cimmerian with his black brows, broadchest, and powerful limbs. They stood in a corner of the Sword-Makers'Bazar, and on either side of them flowed past the many-tongued,many-colored stream of the Zamboula streets, which is exotic, hybrid,flamboyant and clamorous.

Conan pulled his eyes back from following a bold-eyed, red-lippedGhanara whose short skirt bared her brown thigh at each insolent step,and frowned down at his importunate companion.

'What do you mean by peril?' he demanded.

The desert man glanced furtively over his shoulder before replying, andlowered his voice.

'Who can say? But desert men and travelers have slept in the house ofAram Baksh, and never been seen or heard of again. What became of them?He swore they rose and went their way—and it is true that no citizenof the city has ever disappeared from his house. But no one saw thetravelers again, and men say that goods and equipment recognized astheirs have been seen in the bazars. If Aram did not sell them, afterdoing away with their owners, how came they here?'

'I have no goods,' growled the Cimmerian, touching the shagreen-boundhilt of the broadsword that hung at his hip. 'I have even sold myhorse.'

'But it is not always rich strangers who vanish by night from the houseof Aram Baksh!' chattered the Zuagir. 'Nay, poor desert men have sleptthere—because his score is less than that of the other taverns—andhave been seen no more. Once a chief of the Zuagirs whose son had thusvanished complained to the satrap, Jungir Khan, who ordered the housesearched by soldiers.'

'And they found a cellar full of corpses?' asked Conan in good-humoredderision.

'Nay! They found naught! And drove the chief from the city with threatsand curses! But—' he drew closer to Conan and shivered—'something elsewas found! At the edge of the desert, beyond the houses, there is aclump of palm trees, and within that grove there is a pit. And withinthat pit have been found human bones, charred and blackened! Not once,but many times!'

'Which proves what?' grunted the Cimmerian.

'Aram Baksh is a demon! Nay, in this accursed city which Stygians builtand which Hyrkanians rule—where white, brown and black folk mingletogether to produce hybrids of all unholy hues and breeds—who can tellwho is a man, and who a demon in disguise? Aram Baksh is a demon in theform of a man! At night he assumes his true guise and carries his guestsoff into the desert where his fellow demons from the waste meet inconclave.'

'Why does he always carry off strangers?' asked Conan skeptically.

'The people of the city would not suffer him to slay their people, butthey care naught for the strangers who fall into his hands. Conan, youare of the West, and know not the secrets of this ancient land. But,since the beginning of happenings, the demons of the desert haveworshipped Yog, the Lord of the Empty Abodes, with fire—fire thatdevours human victims.