A sword-and-sorcery fantasy featuring Conan the Cimmerian, set in the Hyborian Age. When the king of Vendhya dies mysteriously, his sister, Devi Yasmina, seeks answers. Conan becomes entangled with a sinister circle of sorcerers.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
Weiner BLACK GOD'S KISS the weirdest story ever told By C. L. MOORE ва сво Н. BEDFORD-JONES and athers eird
THE PEOPLE OF THE BLACK
CIRCLE
By Robert E. Howard
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in
Weird Tales September, October, November 1934.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
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,
Readnara
