"Robert E. Howard - Conan - Shadows In Zamboula" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

found! At the edge of the desert, beyond the houses, there is a clump of palm
trees, and within that grove there is a pit. And within that 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 built and
which Hyrkanians rule -- where white, brown, and black folk mingle together to
produce hybrids of all unholy hues and breeds -- who can tell who is a man,
and who is a demon in disguise? Aram Baksh is a demon in the form of a man! At
night he assumes his true guise and carries his guests off into the desert,
where his fellow demons from the waste meet in conclave."

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

"The people of the city would not suffer him to slay their people, but they
care nought for the strangers who fall into his hands. Conan, you are of the
West, and know not the secrets of this ancient land. But, since the beginning
of happenings, the demons of the desert have worshipped Yog, the Lord of the
Empty Abodes, with fire -- fire that devours human victims.

"Be warned! You have dwelt for many moons in the tents of the Zuagirs, and you
are our brother! Go not to the house of Aram Baksh!"

"Get out of sight!" Conan said suddenly. "Yonder comes a squad of the city
watch. If they see you they may remember a horse that was stolen from the
satrap's stable--"

The Zuagir gasped and moved convulsively. He ducked between a booth and a
stone horse trough, pausing only long enough to chatter: "Be warned, my
brother! There are demons in the house of Aram Baksh!" Then he darted down a
narrow alley and was gone.

Conan shifted his broad sword-belt to his liking and calmly returned the
searching stares directed at him by the squad of watchmen as they swung past.
They eyed him curiously and suspiciously, for he was a man who stood out even
in such a motley throng as crowded the winding streets of Zamboula. His blue
eyes and alien features distinguished him from the Eastern swarms, and the
straight sword at his hip added point to the racial difference.

The watchmen did not accost him but swung on down the street, while the crowd
opened a lane for them. They were Pelishtim, squat, hook-nosed, with
blue-black beards sweeping their mailed breasts -- mercenaries hired for work
the ruling Turanians considered beneath themselves, and no less hated by the
mongrel population for that reason.

Conan glanced at the sun, just beginning to dip behind the flat-topped houses
on the western side of the bazaar, and hitching once more at his belt, moved
off in the direction of Aram Baksh's tavern.