Untitled Synopsis
(The People of the Black Circle)

The king of Vendhya, Bundha Chand, died in his palace in the royal city of Ayodhya. His young sister, Yasmina Devi, could not understand why he should die, since he had neither been poisoned nor wounded. As he died he called to her with a far away voice that seemed to come from beyond wind-blown gulfs, and said that his soul had been trapped by wizards in a stone room on a high mountain in the night where the wind roared among peaks that shouldered the stars. They were drawing his soul into the body of a foul night-weird, and in a moment of lucidity, he begged her to plunge her jewel-hilted golden-guarded dagger into his heart, to send his soul to Asura before the wizards could draw it back to the tower on the mountain crag. While he was dying, temple gongs and conch shells brayed and thundered in the city, and in a room whose latticed balcony overlooked a long street where torches tossed luridly, a man who called himself Kerim Shah, a noble of Iranistan, watched the wailing thousands cryptically, and speaking to a man in a plain camel-hair robe, called Khemsa, asked him why the destruction of the young king could not have been thus accomplished months or years ago. To which Khemsa answered that even magic was governed by the stars. The stars were properly placed for the destruction of Bhunda Chand – the Serpent in the House of the King. He said that a lock of the king’s black hair had been obtained and sent by a camel caravan across the Jhumda River, to Peshkhauri which guards the Zhaibar Pass, up the Zhaibar into the hills of Ghulistan. The lock of hair, in a golden case crusted with jewels, had been stolen from a princess of Khosala, who had vainly loved Bhunda Chand, begging from him this small token. With this lock of hair forming a point of contact between himself and them – for discarded portions of the human body have invisible connections with the living body – a cult of wizards called Rakhashas, and by themselves the Black Seers, had performed a sorcery which robbed the young king of life, and almost his soul. Kerim Shah revealed in his conversation, what Khemsa already knew, that he was not a prince from Iranistan, but a Hyrcanian, a chief of Turan, and emissary of Yezdigerd, king of Turan, and the mightiest emperor of the East, reigning on the shores of the Sea of Vilayet. Bhunda Chand had defeated the Turanians in a great battle on the River Jhumda. Yezdigerd, plotting his destruction, had sent Kerim Shah to Vendhya, to try to conquer the Kshatriya warriors by sorcery where force had not succeeded. Meanwhile, in the palace, Yasmini Devi had stabbed her brother to save his soul, and then fallen prostrate on the reed-strown floor, while outside the priests howled and slashed themselves with copper daggers, and the gongs thundered with a strident clamor. Then the scene shifted to Peshkhauri in the shadow of the mountains of Ghulistan. The tribes of Ghulistan were kin to those of Iranistan, but more untamed. The armies of Turan had marched through their valleys but had not conquered the hill tribes. The chief cities, Hirut, Secunderam, Bhalkhan, were in the hands of the Turanians but Khahabhul, where dwelt the king of Ghulistan, whose rule the tribes seldom acknowledge, was free, and the Turanians made no attempt to tax or otherwise oppress the mountain tribes. The governor of Peshkhauri had captured seven Afghulis, and according to instructions from Ayodhya, had sent word into the mountains that their chief, Conan, a wanderer from the west who had become a notable bandit in the hills, should come and himself bargain for their release. But Conan was wary, for the Kshatriyas had not always kept their bargains with the hill tribes. On a night the governor was in his chamber the wide window of which, open to allow the cool mountain breeze to temper the heat of the plains, was adjacent to a battlement. Through it he could see the blue Himelian night, dotted with great white stars. He was writing a letter on parchment with a golden pen dipped in the juice of crushed lotos, when to him came a masked woman, in filmy gossamer robes which did not conceal the rich silk vest and girdle and trousers beneath; her slippers were cloth-of-gold, and her head-dress, supporting the veil which fell below her breasts, was bound about with a gold-worked cord, adorned with a golden crescent. The governor recognized her as the Devi, and expostulated with her, citing the unrest of the hill tribes and the turbulence of their foreign chief, Conan, who had raided to the very walls of Peshkhauri. This indeed was not within the walls, but in the great fortress outside, near the foothills. She replied that she had learned that her brother’s destruction was accomplished by the wizards known as the Black Seers, and since it would be folly to lead a Kshatriya army up into the hills, she intended bringing about her vengeance through a chief of the tribes. She ordered the governor to demand, as a price for the lives of the seven Afghulis, the destruction of the Black Seers. Then she left, but she had not gotten to her apartments when she remembered something else she wished to tell him, and she returned. Perhaps she saw a stallion tied under the outer wall. Meanwhile, the governor had heard some one drop upon the battlement outside from a turret, and the next instant a man sprang through the window, with a yard-long Zhaibar knife in his hand, and bade the governor make no sound. It was Conan, the chief of the Afghulis; he was a tall, strongly and supply built man, clad like a hillman, which attire seemed incongruous, for he was not an Eastern, but a barbaric Cimmerian. He demanded what the governor wished with him, and when told, he was suspicious. At that instant the Devi entered, the governor cried out her name in his alarm, and Conan, realizing who she was, struck the governor down with the hilt of his knife, caught up the Devi, leaped through the window onto the parapet, gained his horse and rode for the mountains, shouting in his wild exultation. The governor ordered out a party of horsemen in full pursuit. Meanwhile, a girl who acted as Khemsa’s spy, took him the word. He and Kerim Shah had followed the Devi to Peshkhauri. She urged him to take advantage of his knowledge of the black art – knowledge forbidden him by his masters without their permit – and make himself rich. Her idea was that they should destroy the seven men in prison – for she knew that part of the ransom Conan would demand for the Devi would be their release – and then follow Conan into the mountains and take the girl away from him, and collect the ransom themselves. Her idea in destroying the prisoners was to gain time for themselves. So he went to the prison and destroyed them by his black magic, and he and the girl went into the mountains. In the meantime Kerim Shah had heard of the abduction – though the governor tried to keep it a secret – and he sent a rider to Secunderam to inform the satrap there, and bid him send a force southward strong enough to take the Devi away from the hillmen. He himself went into the hills with some Irakzai tribesmen he had bribed. Meanwhile Conan, who was making for the country of the Afghulis, which lay adjacent to the Zhaibar Pass, lamed his horse and was pressed so closely by the pursuing Kshatriyas that he was forced to take refuge among the Wazulis. The chief of the Wazulis was his friend, but Khemsa, following close, destroyed the chief, and the warriors tried to take the Devi from him. After a savage fight Conan won clear, taking her with him, and encountering Khemsa, resisted his magic and saw him and the girl destroyed by greater magic. The Black Seers were taking notice at last. The girl was taken from him, and carried to their tower. He fell in with Kerim Shah, and the Turanian, hearing that the Black Seers had turned against him, went with his Irakzais and Conan. In storming the tower, all were destroyed except Conan and Kerim Shah. Then they fought for the girl, and Conan won. In the meantime the force had advanced from Secunderam and fallen on the Afghulis, taking them by surprize. A force of Kshatriyas were advancing up a valley, and the Devi won her freedom by bargaining with Conan, and hurling her warriors into the battle to crush and rout the Turanians. Then he returned her safely to her people.