This proposition was not so audacious as it might seem. Conan’s fame had
preceded him, even into distant Keshan; his exploits as a chief of the
black corsairs, those wolves of the southern coasts, had made his name
known, admired and feared throughout the black kingdoms. He did not
refuse tests devised by the dusky lords. Skirmishes along the borders
were incessant, affording the Cimmerian plenty of opportunities to
demonstrate his ability at hand-to-hand fighting. His reckless ferocity
impressed the lords of Keshan, already aware of his reputation as a
leader of men, and the prospects seemed favorable. All Conan secretly
desired was employment to give him legitimate excuse for remaining in
Keshan long enough to locate the hiding-place of the Teeth of Gwahlur.
Then there came an interruption. Thutmekri came to Keshan at the head of
an embassy from Zembabwei.

Thutmekri was a Stygian, an adventurer and a rogue whose wits had
recommended him to the twin kings of the great hybrid trading kingdom
which lay many days’ march to the east. He and the Cimmerian knew each
other of old, and without love. Thutmekri likewise had a proposition to
make to the king of Keshan, and it also concerned the conquest of
Punt–which kingdom, incidentally, lying east of Keshan, had recently
expelled the Zembabwan traders and burned their fortresses.

His offer outweighed even the prestige of Conan. He pledged himself to
invade Punt from the east with a host of black spearmen, Shemitish
archers, and mercenary swordsmen, and to aid the king of Keshan to annex
the hostile kingdom. The benevolent kings of Zembabwei desired only a
monopoly of the trade of Keshan and her tributaries–and, as a pledge
of good faith, some of the Teeth of Gwahlur. These would be put to no
base usage. Thutmekri hastened to explain to the suspicious chieftains;
they would be placed in the temple of Zembabwei beside the squat gold
idols of Dagon and Derketo, sacred guests in the holy shrine of the
kingdom, to seal the covenant between Keshan and Zembabwei. This
statement brought a savage grin to Conan’s hard lips.

The Cimmerian made no attempt to match wits and intrigue with Thutmekri
and his Shemitish partner, Zargheba. He knew that if Thutmekri won his
point, he would insist on the instant banishment of his rival. There was
but one thing for Conan to do: find the jewels before the king of Keshan
made up his mind and flee with them. But by this time he was certain
that they were not hidden in Keshia, the royal city which was a swarm of
thatched huts crowding about a mud wall that enclosed a palace of stone
and mud and bamboo.

While he fumed with nervous impatience, the high priest Gorulga
announced that before any decision could be reached, the will of the
gods must be ascertained concerning the proposed alliance with Zembabwei
and the pledge of objects long held holy and inviolate. The oracle of
Alkmeenon must be consulted.

This was an awesome thing, and it caused tongues to wag excitedly in
palace and bee-hive hut. Not for a century had the priests visited the
silent city. The oracle, men said, was the Princess Yelaya, the last
ruler of Alkmeenon, who had died in the full bloom of her youth and
beauty, and whose body had miraculously remained unblemished throughout
the ages. Of old, priests had made their way into the haunted city, and
she had taught them wisdom. The last priest to seek the oracle had been
a wicked man, who had sought to steal for himself the curiously cut
jewels that men called the Teeth of Gwahlur. But some doom had come upon
him in the deserted palace, from which his acolytes, fleeing, had told
tales of horror that had for a hundred years frightened the priests from
the city and the oracle.

But Gorulga, the present high priest, as one confident in his knowledge
of his own integrity, announced that he would go with a handful of
followers to revive the ancient custom. And in the excitement tongues
buzzed indiscreetly, and Conan caught the clue for which he had sought
for weeks–the overheard whisper of a lesser priest that sent the
Cimmerian stealing out of Keshia the night before the dawn when the
priests were to start.

Riding as hard as he dared for a night and a day and a night, he came in
the early dawn to the cliffs of Alkmeenon, which stood in the
southwestern corner of the kingdom, amidst uninhabited jungle which was
taboo to common men. None but the priests dared approach the haunted
vale within a distance of many miles. And not even a priest had entered
Alkmeenon for a hundred years.

No man had ever climbed these cliffs, legends said, and none but the
priests knew the secret entrance into the valley. Conan did not waste
time looking for it. Steeps that balked these people, horsemen and
dwellers of plain and level forest, were not impossible for a man born
in the rugged hills of Cimmeria.

Now on the summit of the cliffs he looked down into the circular valley
and wondered what plague, war or superstition had driven the members of
that ancient race forth from their stronghold to mingle with and be
absorbed by the tribes that hemmed them in.

This valley had been their citadel. There the palace stood, and there
only the royal family and their court dwelt. The real city stood outside
the cliffs. Those waving masses of green jungle vegetation hid its
ruins. But the domes that glistened in the leaves below him were the
unbroken pinnacles of the royal palace of Alkmeenon which had defied the
corroding ages.

Swinging a leg over the rim he went down swiftly. The inner side of the
cliffs was more broken, not quite so sheer. In less than half the time
it had taken him to ascend the outer side, he dropped to the swarded
valley floor.