THE HOUR OF THE DRAGON
By Robert E. Howard
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was first published in Weird TalesDecember 1935, January, February, March and April 1936. Extensiveresearch did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on thispublication was renewed.]
1
O Sleeper, Awake!
The long tapers flickered, sending the black shadows wavering along thewalls, and the velvet tapestries rippled. Yet there was no wind in thechamber. Four men stood about the ebony table on which lay the greensarcophagus that gleamed like carven jade. In the upraised right hand ofeach 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 longgreen case across which cryptic hieroglyphics writhed, as if lent lifeand movement by the unsteady light. The man at the foot of thesarcophagus leaned over it and moved his candle as if he were writingwith a pen, inscribing a mystic symbol in the air. Then he set down thecandle in its black gold stick at the foot of the case, and, mumblingsome formula unintelligible to his companions, he thrust a broad whitehand into his fur-trimmed robe. When he brought it forth again it was asif he cupped in his palm a ball of living fire.
The other three drew in their breath sharply, and the dark, powerful manwho stood at the head of the sarcophagus whispered: 'The Heart ofAhriman!' The other lifted a quick hand for silence. Somewhere a dogbegan howling dolefully, and a stealthy step padded outside the barredand bolted door. But none looked aside from the mummy-case over whichthe man in the ermine-trimmed robe was now moving the great flamingjewel 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 sureof what they saw; but with a splintering crash, the carven lid of thesarcophagus burst outward as if from some irresistible pressure appliedfrom within, and the four men, bending eagerly forward, saw theoccupant—a huddled, withered, wizened shape, with dried brown limbslike dead wood showing through moldering bandages.
'Bring that thing back?' muttered the small dark man who stood on theright, 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 thejewel. Perspiration stood upon his broad white forehead and his eyeswere dilated. He leaned forward, and, without touching the thing withhis hand, laid on the breast of the mummy the blazing jewel. Then hedrew back and watched with fierce intensity, his lips moving insoundless 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 clenchedteeth of the watchers. For as they watched, an awful transmutationbecame apparent. The withered s