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THE DEVIL IN IRON
By Robert E. Howard
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird Tales August 1934. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
1
The fisherman loosened his knife in its scabbard. The gesture wasinstinctive, for what he feared was nothing a knife could slay, not eventhe saw-edged crescent blade of the Yuetshi that could disembowel a manwith an upward stroke. Neither man nor beast threatened him in thesolitude which brooded over the castellated isle of Xapur.
He had climbed the cliffs, passed through the jungle that bordered them,and now stood surrounded by evidences of a vanished state. Brokencolumns glimmered among the trees, the straggling lines of crumblingwalls meandered off into the shadows, and under his feet were broadpaves, cracked and bowed by roots growing beneath.
The fisherman was typical of his race, that strange people whose originis lost in the gray dawn of the past, and who have dwelt in their rudefishing huts along the southern shore of the Sea of Vilayet since timeimmemorial. He was broadly built, with long apish arms and a mightychest, but with lean loins and thin bandy legs. His face was broad, hisforehead low and retreating, his hair thick and tangled. A belt for aknife and a rag for a loin-cloth were all he wore in the way ofclothing.
That he was where he was proved that he was less dully incurious thanmost of his people. Men seldom visited Xapur. It was uninhabited, allbut forgotten, merely one among the myriad isles which dotted the greatinland sea. Men called it Xapur, the Fortified, because of its ruins,remnants of some prehistoric kingdom, lost and forgotten before theconquering Hyborians had ridden southward. None knew who reared thosestones, though dim legends lingered among the Yuetshi which halfintelligibly suggested a connection of immeasurable antiquity betweenthe fishers and the unknown island kingdom.
But it had been a thousand years since any Yuetshi had understood theimport of these tales; they repeated them now as a meaningless formula,a gibberish framed by their lips by custom. No Yuetshi had come to Xapurfor a century. The adjacent coast of the mainland was uninhabited, areedy marsh given over to the grim beasts that haunted it. The fisher'svillage lay some distance to the south, on the mainland. A storm hadblown his frail fishing craft far from his accustomed haunts, andwrecked it in a night of flaring lightning and roaring waters on thetowering cliffs of the isle. Now in the dawn the sky shone blue andclear, the rising sun made jewels of the dripping leaves. He had climbedthe cliffs to which he had clung through the night because, in the midstof the storm, he had seen an appalling lance of lightning fork out ofthe black heavens, and the concussion of its stroke, which had shakenthe whole island, had been accompanied by a cataclysmic crash that hedoubted could have resulted from a riven tree.
A dull curiosity had caused him to investigate; and now he had foundwhat he sought and an animal-like uneasiness possessed him, a sense oflurking peril.
Among the trees reared a broken dome-like structure, built of giganticblocks of the peculiar iron-like green stone found only on the islandsof Vilayet. It seemed incredible that human hands could have shaped andplaced them, and certainly it was beyond human power to have overthrownthe structure they formed. But the thunderbolt had splintered theton-heavy blocks like so much glass, reduced others to green dust, andripped away the whole arch of the dome.
The fisherman climbed over the debris and peered in, and what he sawbrought a grunt from him. Within the ruined dome, surrounded bystone-dust and bits of broken masonry, lay a man on the golden block. Hewas clad in a sort of skirt and a shagreen girdle. His black hair, whichfell in a square mane to his massive shoulders, was confined about histemples by a narrow gold band. On his bare, muscular breast lay acurious dagger with a jeweled pommel, shagreen-bound hilt, and a broadcrescent blade. It was much like the knife the fisherman wore at hiship, but it lacked the serrated edge, and was made with infinitelygreater skill.
The fisherman lusted for the weapon. The man, of course, was dead; hadbeen dead for many centuries. This dome was his tomb. The fisherman didnot wonder by what art the ancients had preserved the body in such avivid likeness of life, which kept the muscular limbs full andunshrunken, the dark flesh vital. The dull brain of the Yuetshi had roomonly for his desire for the knife with its delicate waving lines alongthe dully gleaming blade.
Scrambling down into the dome, he lifted the weapon from the man'sbreast. And as he did so, a strange and terrible thing came to pass. Themuscular dark hands knotted convulsively, the lids flared open,revealing great dark magnetic eyes whose stare struck the startledfisherman like a physical blow. He recoiled, dropping the jeweled daggerin his perturbation. The man on the dais heaved up to a sittingposition, and the fisherman gaped at the full extent of his size, thusrevealed. His narrowed eyes held the Yuetshi and in those slitted orbshe read neither friendliness nor gratitude; he saw only a fire as alienand hostile as that which burns in the eyes of a tiger.
Suddenly the man rose and towered above him, menace in his every aspect.There was no room in the fisherman's dull brain for fear, at least forsuch fear as might grip a man who has just seen the fundamental laws ofnature defied. As the great hands fell to his shoulders, he drew hissaw-edged knife and struck upward with the same motion. The bladesplintered against the stranger's corded belly as against a steelcolumn, and then the fisherman's thick neck broke like a rotten twig inthe giant hands.