« It was the sight of this face which froze the cry in Taramis’s throat. The features were her own! She might have been looking into a mirror which subtly altered her reflection, lending it a tigerish gleam of eye, a vindictive curl of lip.
“Ishtar!” gasped Taramis. “I am bewitched!”
“Bewitched? No, sweet sister!”
“Sister? I have no sister.”
Salome laughed fiercely, and slapped her bosom. Between her breasts shone a crescent, red as blood.
“The mark of the witch!” cried Taramis, recoiling.
“Aye! The curse of the kings of Khauran! They tell how the first queen of our line had traffic with a fiend of darkness and bore him a daughter who lives in foul legendry to this day. And thereafter in each century a girl baby was born with a scarlet half-moon between her breasts, that signified her destiny. ‘Every century a witch shall be born.’ So ran the ancient curse. And so it has come to pass.
“Well, this world contains all I desire – power, and pomp, and glittering pageantry, handsome men and soft women for my paramours and my slaves. I have returned to take that to which I have as much right as you.”»
Robert E. Howard - A Witch shall be Born
