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The Hour of the Dragon

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Title: The Hour of the Dragon

Author: Robert E. Howard

 
Release date: March 2, 2013 [eBook #42243]
 Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42243

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON ***

 THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON

 By Robert E. Howard

 [Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird Tales
 December 1935, January, February, March and April 1936. Extensive
 research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
 this publication was renewed.]

1

O Sleeper, Awake!

The long tapers flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along the
walls, and the velvet tapestries rippled. Yet there was no wind in the
chamber. Four men stood about the ebony table on which lay the green
sarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade. In the upraised right hand of
each man a curious black candle burned with a weird greenish light.
Outside was night and a lost wind moaning among the black trees.

Inside the chamber was tense silence, and the wavering of the shadows,
while four pairs of eyes, burning with intensity, were fixed on the long
green case across which cryptic hieroglyphics writhed, as if lent life
and movement by the unsteady light. The man at the foot of the
sarcophagus leaned over it and moved his candle as if he were writing
with a pen, inscribing a mystic symbol in the air. Then he set down the
candle in its black gold stick at the foot of the case, and, mumbling
some formula unintelligible to his companions, he thrust a broad white
hand into his fur-trimmed robe. When he brought it forth again it was as
if he cupped in his palm a ball of living fire.

The other three drew in their breath sharply, and the dark, powerful man
who stood at the head of the sarcophagus whispered: 'The Heart of
Ahriman!' The other lifted a quick hand for silence. Somewhere a dog
began howling dolefully, and a stealthy step padded outside the barred
and bolted door. But none looked aside from the mummy-case over which
the man in the ermine-trimmed robe was now moving the great flaming
jewel while he muttered an incantation that was old when Atlantis sank.
The glare of the gem dazzled their eyes, so that they could not be sure
of what they saw; but with a splintering crash, the carven lid of the
sarcophagus burst outward as if from some irresistible pressure applied
from within, and the four men, bending eagerly forward, saw the
occupant--a huddled, withered, wizened shape, with dried brown limbs
like dead wood showing through moldering bandages.

'Bring that thing _back_?' muttered the small dark man who stood on the
right, with a short sardonic laugh. 'It is ready to crumble at a touch.
We are fools--'

'Shhh!' It was an urgent hiss of command from the large man who held the
jewel. Perspiration stood upon his broad white forehead and his eyes
were dilated. He leaned forward, and, without touching the thing with
his hand, laid on the breast of the mummy the blazing jewel. Then he
drew back and watched with fierce intensity, his lips moving in
soundless invocation.

It was as if a globe of living fire flickered and burned on the dead,
withered bosom. And breath sucked in, hissing, through the clenched
teeth of the watchers. For as they watched, an awful transmutation
became apparent. The withered shape in the sarcophagus was expanding,
was growing, lengthening. The bandages burst and fell into brown dust.
The shriveled limbs swelled, straightened. Their dusky hue began to
fade.

'By Mitra!' whispered the tall, yellow-haired man on the left. 'He was
_not_ a Stygian. That part at least was true.'

Again a trembling finger warned for silence. The hound outside was no
longer howling. He whimpered, as with an evil dream, and then that
sound, too, died away in silence, in which the yellow-haired man plainly
heard the straining of the heavy door, as if something outside pushed
powerfully upon it. He half turned, his hand at his sword, but the man
in the ermine robe hissed an urgent warning: 'Stay! Do not break the
chain! And on your life do not go to the door!'

The yellow-haired man shrugged and turned back, and then he stopped
short, staring. In the jade sarcophagus lay a living man: a tall, lusty
man, naked, white of skin, and dark of hair and beard. He lay
motionless, his eyes wide open, and blank and unknowing as a newborn
babe's. On his breast the great jewel smoldered and sparkled.

The man in ermine reeled as if from some let-down of extreme tension.

'Ishtar!' he gasped. 'It is Xaltotun!--_and he lives!_ Valerius!
Tarascus! Amalric! Do you see? Do you see? You doubted me--but I have
not failed! We have been close to the open gates of hell this night, and
the shapes of darkness have gathered close about us--aye, they followed
_him_ to the very door--but we have brought the great magician back to
life.'

'And damned our souls to purgatories everlasting, I doubt not,' muttered
the small, dark man, Tarascus.

The yellow-haired man, Valerius, laughed harshly.

'What purgatory can be worse than life itself? So we are all damned
together from birth. Besides, who would not sell his miserable soul for
a throne?'

'There is no intelligence in his stare, Orastes,' said the large man.

'He has long been dead,' answered Orastes. 'He is as one newly awakened.
His mind is empty after the long sleep--nay, he was _dead_, not
sleeping. We brought his spirit back over the voids and gulfs of night
and oblivion. I will speak to him.'

He bent over the foot of the sarcophagus, and fixing his gaze on the
wide dark eyes of the man within, he said, slowly: 'Awake, Xaltotun!'

The lips of the man moved mechanically. 'Xaltotun!' he repeated in a
groping whisper.

'_You_ are Xaltotun!' exclaimed Orastes, like a hypnotist driving home
his suggestions. 'You are Xaltotun of Python, in Acheron.'

A dim flame flickered in the dark eyes.

'I was Xaltotun,' he whispered. 'I am dead.'

'You _are_ Xaltotun!' cried Orastes. 'You are not dead! You live!'

'I am Xaltotun,' came the eery whisper. 'But I am dead. In my house in
Khemi, in Stygia, there I died.'

'And the priests who poisoned you mummified your body with their dark
arts, keeping all your organs intact!' exclaimed Orastes. 'But now you
live again! The Heart of Ahriman has restored your life, drawn your
spirit back from space and eternity.'

'The 

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