_2. By the Blaze of the Fire-Jewels_
Valeria awoke with a start, to the realization that a gray dawn wasstealing over the plain.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Conan squatted beside the cactus, cuttingoff the thick pears and dexterously twitching out the spikes.
"You didn't awake me," she accused. "You let me sleep all night!"
"You were tired," he answered. "Your posterior must have been sore, too,after that long ride. You pirates aren't used to horseback."
"What about yourself?" she retorted.
"I was a _kozak_ before I was a pirate," he answered. "They live in thesaddle. I snatch naps like a panther watching beside the trail for adeer to come by. My ears keep watch while my eyes sleep."
And indeed the giant barbarian seemed as much refreshed as if he hadslept the whole night on a golden bed. Having removed the thorns, andpeeled off the tough skin, he handed the girl a thick, juicy cactusleaf.
"Skin your teeth in that pear. It's food and drink to a desert man. Iwas a chief of the Zuagirs once--desert men who live by plundering thecaravans."
"Is there anything you haven't been?" inquired the girl, half inderision and half in fascination.
"I've never been king of an Hyborian kingdom," he grinned, taking anenormous mouthful of cactus. "But I've dreamed of being even that. Imay be too, some day. Why shouldn't I?"
She shook her head in wonder at his calm audacity, and fell to devouringher pear. She found it not unpleasing to the palate, and full of cooland thirst-satisfying juice. Finishing his meal, Conan wiped his handsin the sand, rose, ran his fingers through his thick black mane, hitchedat his sword-belt and said:
"Well, let's go. If the people in that city are going to cut our throatsthey may as well do it now, before the heat of the day begins."
His grim humor was unconscious, but Valeria reflected that it might beprophetic. She too hitched her sword-belt as she rose. Her terrors ofthe night were past. The roaring dragons of the distant forest were likea dim dream. There was a swagger in her stride as she moved off besidethe Cimmerian. Whatever perils lay ahead of them, their foes would bemen. And Valeria of the Red Brotherhood had never seen the face of theman she feared.
Conan glanced down at her as she strode along beside him with herswinging stride that matched his own.
"You walk more like a hillman than a sailor," he said. "You must be anAquilonian. The suns of Darfar never burnt your white skin brown. Many aprincess would envy you."
"I am from Aquilonia," she replied. His compliments no longer irritatedher. His evident admiration pleased her. For another man to have kepther watch while she slept would have angered her; she had alwaysfiercely resented any man's attempting to shield or protect her becauseof her sex. But she found a secret pleasure in the fact that this manhad done so. And he had not taken advantage of her fright and theweakness resulting from it. After all, she reflected, her companion wasno common man.
* * * * *
The sun rose behind the city, turning the towers to a sinister crimson.
"Black last night against the moon," grunted Conan, his eyes cloudingwith the abysmal superstition of the barbarian. "Blood-red as a threatof blood against the sun this dawn. I do not like this city."
But they went on, and as they went Conan pointed out the fact that noroad ran to the city from the north.
"No cattle have trampled the plain on this side of the city," said he."No plowshare has touched the earth for years, maybe centuries. Butlook: once this plain was cultivated."
Valeria saw the ancient irrigation ditches he indicated, half filled inplaces, and overgrown with cactus. She frowned with perplexity as hereyes swept over the plain that stretched on all sides of the city to theforest edge, which marched in a vast, dim ring. Vision did not extendbeyond that ring.
She looked uneasily at the city. No helmets or spear-heads gleamed onbattlements, no trumpets sounded, no challenge rang from the towers. Asilence as absolute as that of the forest brooded over the walls andminarets.
The sun was high above the eastern horizon when they stood before thegreat gate in the northern wall, in the shadow of the lofty rampart.Rust flecked the iron bracings of the mighty bronze portal. Spiderwebsglistened thickly on hinge and sill and bolted panel.
"It hasn't been opened for years!" exclaimed Valeria.
"A dead city," grunted Conan. "That's why the ditches were broken andthe plain untouched."
"But who built it? Who dwelt here? Where did they go? Why did theyabandon it?"
"Who can say? Maybe an exiled clan of Stygians built it. Maybe not. Itdoesn't look like Stygian architecture. Maybe the people were wiped outby enemies, or a plague exterminated them."
"In that case their treasures may still be gathering dust and cobwebs inthere," suggested Valeria, the acquisitive instincts of her professionwaking in her; prodded, too, by feminine curiosity. "Can we open thegate? Let's go in and explore a bit."
Conan eyed the heavy portal dubiously, but placed his massive shoulderagainst it and thrust with all the power of his muscular calves andthighs. With a rasping screech of rusty hinges the gate movedponderously inward, and Conan straightened and drew his sword. Valeriastared over his shoulder, and made a sound indicative of surprise.
They were not looking into an open street or court as one would haveexpected. The opened gate, or door, gave directly into a long, broadhall which ran away and away until its vista grew indistinct in thedistance. It was of heroic proportions, and the floor of a curious redstone, cut in square tiles, that seemed to smolder as if with thereflection of flames. The walls were of a shiny green material.
"Jade, or I'm a Shemite!" swore Conan.
"Not in such quantity!" protested Valeria.
"I've looted enough from the Khitan caravans to know what I'm talkingabout," he asserted. "That's jade!"
The vaulted ceiling was of lapis lazuli, adorned with clusters of greatgreen stones that gleamed with a poisonous radiance.
"Green fire-stones," growled Conan. "That's what the people of Punt callthem. They're supposed to be the petrified eyes of those prehistoricsnakes the ancients called Golden Serpents. They glow like a cat's eyesin the dark. At night this hall would be lighted by them, but it wouldbe a hellishly weird illumination. Let's look around. We might find acache of jewels."
"Shut the door," advised Valeria. "I'd hate to have to outrun a dragondown this hall."
Conan grinned, and replied: "I don't believe the dragons ever leave theforest."
But he complied, and pointed out the broken bolt on the inner side.
"I thought I heard something snap when I shoved against it. That bolt'sfreshly broken. Rust has eaten nearly through it. If the people ranaway, why should it have been bolted on the inside?"
"They undoubtedly left by another door," suggested Valeria.
She wondered how many centuries had passed since the light of outer dayhad filtered into that great hall through the open door. Sunlight wasfinding its way somehow into the hall, and they quickly saw the source.High up in the vaulted ceiling skylights were set in slot-likeopenings--translucent sheets of some crystalline substance. In thesplotches of shadow between them, the green jewels winked like the eyesof angry cats. Beneath their feet the dully lurid floor smoldered withchanging hues and colors of flame. It was like treading the floors ofhell with evil stars blinking overhead.
Three balustraded galleries ran along on each side of the hall, oneabove the other.
"A four-storied house," grunted Conan, "and this hall extends to theroof. It's long as a street. I seem to see a door at the other end."
Valeria shrugged her white shoulders.
"Your eyes are better than mine, then, though I'm accounted sharp-eyedamong the sea-rovers."
* * * * *
They turned into an open door at random, and traversed a series of emptychambers, floored like the hall, and with walls of the same green jade,or of marble or ivory or chalcedo
ny, adorned with friezes of bronze,gold or silver. In the ceilings the green fire-gems were set, and theirlight was as ghostly and illusive as Conan had predicted. Under thewitch-fire glow the intruders moved like specters.
Some of the chambers lacked this illumination, and their doorways showedblack as the mouth of the Pit. These Conan and Valeria avoided, keepingalways to the lighted chambers.
Cobwebs hung in the corners, but there was no perceptible accumulationof dust on the floor, or on the tables and seats of marble, jade orcarnelian which occupied the chambers. Here and there were rugs of thatsilk known as Khitan which is practically indestructible. Nowhere didthey find any windows, or doors opening into streets or courts. Eachdoor merely opened into another chamber or hall.
"Why don't we come to a street?" grumbled Valeria. "This place orwhatever we're in must be as big as the king of Turan's seraglio."
"They must not have perished of plague," said Conan, meditating upon themystery of the empty city. "Otherwise we'd find skeletons. Maybe itbecame haunted, and everybody got up and left. Maybe----"
"Maybe, hell!" broke in Valeria rudely. "We'll never know. Look at thesefriezes. They portray men. What race do they belong to?"
Conan scanned them and shook his head.
"I never saw people exactly like them. But there's the smack of the Eastabout them--Vendhya, maybe, or Kosala."
"Were you a king in Kosala?" she asked, masking her keen curiosity withderision.
"No. But I was a war-chief of the Afghulis who live in the Himelianmountains above the borders of Vendhya. These people favor the Kosalans.But why should Kosalans be building a city this far to west?"
The figures portrayed were those of slender, olive-skinned men andwomen, with finely chiseled, exotic features. They wore filmy robes andmany delicate jeweled ornaments, and were depicted mostly in attitudesof feasting, dancing or love-making.
"Easterners, all right," grunted Conan, "but from where I don't know.They must have lived a disgustingly peaceful life, though, or they'dhave scenes of wars and fights. Let's go up that stair."
It was an ivory spiral that wound up from the chamber in which they werestanding. They mounted three flights and came into a broad chamber onthe fourth floor, which seemed to be the highest tier in the building.Skylights in the ceiling illuminated the room, in which light thefire-gems winked pallidly. Glancing through the doors they saw, excepton one side, a series of similarly lighted chambers. This other dooropened upon a balustraded gallery that overhung a hall much smaller thanthe one they had recently explored on the lower floor.
"Hell!" Valeria sat down disgustedly on a jade bench. "The people whodeserted this city must have taken all their treasures with them. I'mtired of wandering through these bare rooms at random."
"All these upper chambers seem to be lighted," said Conan. "I wish wecould find a window that overlooked the city. Let's have a look throughthat door over there."
"You have a look," advised Valeria. "I'm going to sit here and rest myfeet."
* * * * *
Conan disappeared through the door opposite that one opening upon thegallery, and Valeria leaned back with her hands clasped behind herhead, and thrust her booted legs out in front of her. These silent roomsand halls with their gleaming green clusters of ornaments and burningcrimson floors were beginning to depress her. She wished they could findtheir way out of the maze into which they had wandered and emerge into astreet. She wondered idly what furtive, dark feet had glided over thoseflaming floors in past centuries, how many deeds of cruelty and mysterythose winking ceiling-gems had blazed down upon.
It was a faint noise that brought her out of her reflections. She was onher feet with her sword in her hand before she realized what haddisturbed her. Conan had not returned, and she knew it was not he thatshe had heard.
The sound had come from somewhere beyond the door that opened on to thegallery. Soundlessly in her soft leather boots she glided through it,crept across the balcony and peered down between the heavy balustrades.
_A man was stealing along the hall._
The sight of a human being in this supposedly deserted city was astartling shock. Crouching down behind the stone balusters, with everynerve tingling, Valeria glared down at the stealthy figure.
The man in no way resembled the figures depicted on the friezes. He wasslightly above middle height, very dark, though not negroid. He wasnaked but for a scanty silk clout that only partly covered his muscularhips, and a leather girdle, a hand's breadth broad, about his leanwaist. His long black hair hung in lank strands about his shoulders,giving him a wild appearance. He was gaunt, but knots and cords ofmuscles stood out on his arms and legs, without that fleshy padding thatpresents a pleasing symmetry of contour. He was built with an economythat was almost repellent.
Yet it was not so much his physical appearance as his attitude thatimpressed the woman who watched him. He slunk along, stooped in asemi-crouch, his head turning from side to side. He grasped awide-tipped blade in his right hand, and she saw it shake with theintensity of the emotion that gripped him. He was afraid, trembling inthe grip of some dire terror. When he turned his head she caught theblaze of wild eyes among the lank strands of black hair.
He did not see her. On tiptoe he glided across the hall and vanishedthrough an open door. A moment later she heard a choking cry, and thensilence fell again.
Consumed with curiosity, Valeria glided along the gallery until she cameto a door above the one through which the man had passed. It opened intoanother, smaller gallery that encircled a large chamber.
This chamber was on the third floor, and its ceiling was not so high asthat of the hall. It was lighted only by the fire-stones, and theirweird green glow left the spaces under the balcony in shadows.
Valeria's eyes widened. The man she had seen was still in the chamber.
He lay face down on a dark crimson carpet in the middle of the room. Hisbody was limp, his arms spread wide. His curved sword lay near him.
She wondered why he should lie there so motionless. Then her eyesnarrowed as she stared down at the rug on which he lay. Beneath andabout him the fabric showed a slightly different color, a deeper,brighter crimson.
Shivering slightly, she crouched down closer behind the balustrade,intently scanning the shadows under the overhanging gallery. They gaveup no secret.
Suddenly another figure entered the grim drama. He was a man similar tothe first, and he came in by a door opposite that which gave upon thehall.
His eyes glared at the sight of the man on the floor, and he spokesomething in a staccato voice that sounded like "Chicmec!" The other didnot move.
The man stepped quickly across the floor, bent, gripped the fallen man'sshoulder and turned him over. A choking cry escaped him as the head fellback limply, disclosing a throat that had been severed from ear to ear.
The man let the corpse fall back upon the blood-stained carpet, andsprang to his feet, shaking like a wind-blown leaf. His face was an ashymask of fear. But with one knee flexed for flight, he froze suddenly,became as immobile as an image, staring across the chamber with dilatedeyes.
In the shadows beneath the balcony a ghostly light began to glow andgrow, a light that was not part of the fire-stone gleam. Valeria felther hair stir as she watched it; for, dimly visible in the throbbingradiance, there floated a human skull, and it was from this skull--humanyet appallingly misshapen--that the spectral light seemed to emanate. Ithung there like a disembodied head, conjured out of night and theshadows, growing more and more distinct; human, and yet not human as sheknew humanity.
The man stood motionless, an embodiment of paralyzed horror, staringfixedly at the apparition. The thing moved out from the wall and agrotesque shadow moved with it. Slowly the shadow became visible as aman-like figure whose naked torso and limbs shone whitely, with the hueof bleached bones. The bare skull on its shoulders grinned eyelessly, inthe midst of its unholy nimbus, and the man confronting it seemed unableto take his eyes fro
m it. He stood still, his sword dangling fromnerveless fingers, on his face the expression of a man bound by thespells of a mesmerist.
* * * * *
Valeria realized that it was not fear alone that paralyzed him. Somehellish quality of that throbbing glow had robbed him of his power tothink and act. She herself, safely above the scene, felt the subtleimpact of a nameless emanation that was a threat to sanity.
The horror swept toward its victim and he moved at last, but only todrop his sword and sink to his knees, covering his eyes with his hands.Dumbly he awaited the stroke of the blade that now gleamed in theapparition's hand as it reared above him like Death triumphant overmankind.
Valeria acted according to the first impulse of her wayward nature. Withone tigerish movement she was over the balustrade and dropping to thefloor behind the awful shape. It wheeled at the thud of her soft bootson the floor, but even as it turned, her keen blade lashed down, and afierce exultation swept her as she felt the edge cleave solid flesh andmortal bone.
The apparition cried out gurglingly and went down, severed throughshoulder, breast-bone and spine, and as it fell the burning skull rolledclear, revealing a lank mop of black hair and a dark face twisted in theconvulsions of death. Beneath the horrific masquerade there was a humanbeing, a man similar to the one kneeling supinely on the floor.
The latter looked up at the sound of the blow and the cry, and now heglared in wild-eyed amazement at the white-skinned woman who stood overthe corpse with a dripping sword in her hand.
He staggered up, yammering as if the sight had almost unseated hisreason. She was amazed to realize that she understood him. He wasgibbering in the Stygian tongue, though in a dialect unfamiliar to her.
"Who are you? Whence come you? What do you in Xuchotl?" Then rushingon, without waiting for her to reply: "But you are a friend--goddess ordevil, it makes no difference! You have slain the Burning Skull! It wasbut a man beneath it, after all! We deemed it a demon _they_ conjured upout of the catacombs! _Listen!_"
He stopped short in his ravings and stiffened, straining his ears withpainful intensity. The girl heard nothing.
"We must hasten!" he whispered. "_They_ are west of the Great Hall! Theymay be all around us here! They may be creeping upon us even now!"
He seized her wrist in a convulsive grasp she found hard to break.
"Whom do you mean by 'they'?" she demanded.
He stared at her uncomprehendingly for an instant, as if he found herignorance hard to understand.
"They?" he stammered vaguely. "Why--why, the people of Xotalanc! Theclan of the man you slew. They who dwell by the eastern gate."
"You mean to say this city is inhabited?" she exclaimed.
"Aye! Aye!" He was writhing in the impatience of apprehension. "Comeaway! Come quick! We must return to Tecuhltli!"
"Where is that?" she demanded.
"The quarter by the western gate!" He had her wrist again and waspulling her toward the door through which he had first come. Great beadsof perspiration dripped from his dark forehead, and his eyes blazed withterror.
"Wait a minute!" she growled, flinging off his hand. "Keep your handsoff me, or I'll split your skull. What's all this about? Who are you?Where would you take me?"
He took a firm grip on himself, casting glances to all sides, and beganspeaking so fast his words tripped over each other.
"My name is Techotl. I am of Tecuhltli. I and this man who lies with histhroat cut came into the Halls of Science to try and ambush some of theXotalancas. But we became separated and I returned here to find him withhis gullet slit. The Burning Skull did it, I know, just as he would haveslain me had you not killed him. But perhaps he was not alone. Othersmay be stealing from Xotalanc! The gods themselves blench at the fate ofthose they take alive!"
At the thought he shook as with an ague and his dark skin grew ashy.Valeria frowned puzzledly at him. She sensed intelligence behind thisrigmarole, but it was meaningless to her.
She turned toward the skull, which still glowed and pulsed on the floor,and was reaching a booted toe tentatively toward it, when the man whocalled himself Techotl sprang forward with a cry.
"Do not touch it! Do not even look at it! Madness and death lurk in it.The wizards of Xotalanc understand its secret--they found it in thecatacombs, where lie the bones of terrible kings who ruled in Xuchotl inthe black centuries of the past. To gaze upon it freezes the blood andwithers the brain of a man who understands not its mystery. To touch itcauses madness and destruction."
She scowled at him uncertainly. He was not a reassuring figure, with hislean, muscle-knotted frame, and snaky locks. In his eyes, behind theglow of terror, lurked a weird light she had never seen in the eyes of aman wholly sane. Yet he seemed sincere in his protestations.
"Come!" he begged, reaching for her hand, and then recoiling as heremembered her warning, "You are a stranger. How you came here I do notknow, but if you were a goddess or a demon, come to aid Tecuhltli, youwould know all the things you have asked me. You must be from beyond thegreat forest, whence our ancestors came. But you are our friend, or youwould not have slain my enemy. Come quickly, before the Xotalancas findus and slay us!"
From his repellent, impassioned face she glanced to the sinister skull,smoldering and glowing on the floor near the dead man. It was like askull seen in a dream, undeniably human, yet with disturbing distortionsand malformations of contour and outline. In life the wearer of thatskull must have presented an alien and monstrous aspect. Life? It seemedto possess some sort of life of its own. Its jaws yawned at her andsnapped together. Its radiance grew brighter, more vivid, yet theimpression of nightmare grew too; it was a dream; all life was adream--it was Techotl's urgent voice which snapped Valeria back from thedim gulfs whither she was drifting.
"Do not look at the skull! Do not look at the skull!" It was a far cryfrom across unreckoned voids.
Valeria shook herself like a lion shaking his mane. Her vision cleared.Techotl was chattering: "In life it housed the awful brain of a king ofmagicians! It holds still the life and fire of magic drawn from outerspaces!"
* * * * *
With a curse Valeria leaped, lithe as a panther, and the skull crashedto flaming bits under her swinging sword. Somewhere in the room, or inthe void, or in the dim reaches of her consciousness, an inhuman voicecried out in pain and rage.
Techotl's hand was plucking at her arm and he was gibbering: "You havebroken it! You have destroyed it! Not all the black arts of Xotalanc canrebuild it! Come away! Come away quickly, now!"
"But I can't go," she protested. "I have a friend somewhere near by----"
The flare of his eyes cut her short as he stared past her with anexpression grown ghastly. She wheeled just as four men rushed through asmany doors, converging on the pair in the center of the chamber.
They were like the others she had seen, the same knotted muscles bulgingon otherwise gaunt limbs, the same lank blue-black hair, the same madglare in their wide eyes. They were armed and clad like Techotl, but onthe breast of each was painted a white skull.
There were no challenges or war-cries. Like blood-mad tigers the men ofXotalanc sprang at the throats of their enemies. Techotl met them withthe fury of desperation, ducked the swipe of a wide-headed blade, andgrappled with the wielder, and bore him to the floor where they rolledand wrestled in murderous silence.
The other three swarmed on Valeria, their weird eyes red as the eyes ofmad dogs.
"You can never reach the coast. There is no escape fromXuchotl."]
* * * * *
She killed the first who came within reach before he could strike ablow, her long straight blade splitting his skull even as his own swordlifted for a stroke. She side-stepped a thrust, even as she parried aslash. Her eyes danced and her lips smiled without mercy. Again she wasValeria of the Red Brotherhood, and the hum of her steel was like abridal song in her ears.
Her sword darted p
ast a blade that sought to parry, and sheathed sixinches of its point in a leather-guarded midriff. The man gaspedagonizedly and went to his knees, but his tall mate lunged in, inferocious silence, raining blow on blow so furiously that Valeria had noopportunity to counter. She stepped back coolly, parrying the strokesand watching for her chance to thrust home. He could not long keep upthat flailing whirlwind. His arm would tire, his wind would fail; hewould weaken, falter, and then her blade would slide smoothly into hisheart. A sidelong glance showed her Techotl kneeling on the breast ofhis antagonist and striving to break the other's hold on his wrist andto drive home a dagger.
Sweat beaded the forehead of the man facing her, and his eyes were likeburning coals. Smite as he would, he could not break past nor beat downher guard. His breath came in gusty gulps, his blows began to fallerratically. She stepped back to draw him out--and felt her thighslocked in an iron grip. She had forgotten the wounded man on the floor.
Crouching on his knees, he held her with both arms locked about herlegs, and his mate croaked in triumph and began working his way aroundto come at her from the left side. Valeria wrenched and tore savagely,but in vain. She could free herself of this clinging menace with adownward flick of her sword, but in that instant the curved blade of thetall warrior would crash through her skull. The wounded man began toworry at her bare thigh with his teeth like a wild beast.
She reached down with her left hand and gripped his long hair, forcinghis head back so that his white teeth and rolling eyes gleamed up ather. The tall Xotalanc cried out fiercely and leaped in, smiting withall the fury of his arm. Awkwardly she parried the stroke, and it beatthe flat of her blade down on her head so that she saw sparks flashbefore her eyes, and staggered. Up went the sword again, with a low,beast-like cry of triumph--and then a giant form loomed behind theXotalanc and steel flashed like a jet of blue lightning. The cry of thewarrior broke short and he went down like an ox beneath the pole-ax, hisbrains gushing from his skull that had been split to the throat.
"Conan!" gasped Valeria. In a gust of passion she turned on the Xotalancwhose long hair she still gripped in her left hand. "Dog of hell!" Herblade swished as it cut the air in an upswinging arc with a blur in themiddle, and the headless body slumped down, spurting blood. She hurledthe severed head across the room.
"What the devil's going on here?" Conan bestrode the corpse of the manhe had killed, broadsword in hand, glaring about him in amazement.
Techotl was rising from the twitching figure of the last Xotalanc,shaking red drops from his dagger. He was bleeding from the stab deep inthe thigh. He stared at Conan with dilated eyes.
"What is all this?" Conan demanded again, not yet recovered from thestunning surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle withthese fantastic figures in a city he had thought empty and uninhabited.Returning from an aimless exploration of the upper chambers to findValeria missing from the room where he had left her, he had followed thesounds of strife that burst on his dumbfounded ears.
"Five dead dogs!" exclaimed Techotl, his flaming eyes reflecting aghastly exultation. "Five slain! Five crimson nails for the blackpillar! The gods of blood be thanked!"
He lifted quivering hands on high, and then, with the face of a fiend,he spat on the corpses and stamped on their faces, dancing in hisghoulish glee. His recent allies eyed him in amazement, and Conan asked,in the Aquilonian tongue: "Who is this madman?"
Valeria shrugged her shoulders.
"He says his name's Techotl. From his babblings I gather that his peoplelive at one end of this crazy city, and these others at the other end.Maybe we'd better go with him. He seems friendly, and it's easy to seethat the other clan isn't."
* * * * *
Techotl had ceased his dancing and was listening again, his head tiltedsidewise, dog-like, triumph struggling with fear in his repellentcountenance.
"Come away, now!" he whispered. "We have done enough! Five dead dogs! Mypeople will welcome you! They will honor you! But come! It is far toTecuhltli. At any moment the Xotalancas may come on us in numbers toogreat even for your swords."
"Lead the way," grunted Conan.
Techotl instantly mounted a stair leading up to the gallery, beckoningthem to follow him, which they did, moving rapidly to keep on his heels.Having reached the gallery, he plunged into a door that opened towardthe west, and hurried through chamber after chamber, each lighted byskylights or green fire-jewels.
"What sort of a place can this be?" muttered Valeria under her breath.
"Crom knows!" answered Conan. "I've seen _his_ kind before, though. Theylive on the shores of Lake Zuad, near the border of Kush. They're a sortof mongrel Stygians, mixed with another race that wandered into Stygiafrom the east some centuries ago and were absorbed by them. They'recalled Tlazitlans. I'm willing to bet it wasn't they who built thiscity, though."
Techotl's fear did not seem to diminish as they drew away from thechamber where the dead men lay. He kept twisting his head on hisshoulder to listen for sounds of pursuit, and stared with burningintensity into every doorway they passed.
Valeria shivered in spite of herself. She feared no man. But the weirdfloor beneath her feet, the uncanny jewels over her head, dividing thelurking shadows among them, the stealth and terror of their guide,impressed her with a nameless apprehension, a sensation of lurking,inhuman peril.
"They may be between us and Tecuhltli!" he whispered once. "We mustbeware lest they be lying in wait!"
"Why don't we get out of this infernal palace, and take to the streets?"demanded Valeria.
"There are no streets in Xuchotl," he answered. "No squares nor opencourts. The whole city is built like one giant palace under one greatroof. The nearest approach to a street is the Great Hall which traversesthe city from the north gate to the south gate. The only doors openinginto the outer world are the city gates, through which no living man haspassed for fifty years."
"How long have you dwelt here?" asked Conan.
"I was born in the castle of Tecuhltli thirty-five years ago. I havenever set foot outside the city. For the love of the gods, let us gosilently! These halls may be full of lurking devils. Olmec shall tellyou all when we reach Tecuhltli."
So in silence they glided on with the green fire-stones blinkingoverhead and the flaming floors smoldering under their feet, and itseemed to Valeria as if they fled through hell, guided by a dark-faced,lank-haired goblin.
Yet it was Conan who halted them as they were crossing an unusually widechamber. His wilderness-bred ears were keener even than the ears ofTechotl, whetted though these were by a lifetime of warfare in thosesilent corridors.
"You think some of your enemies may be ahead of us, lying in ambush?"
"They prowl through these rooms at all hours," answered Techotl, "as dowe. The halls and chambers between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc are a disputedregion, owned by no man. We call it the Halls of Silence. Why do youask?"
"Because men are in the chambers ahead of us," answered Conan. "I heardsteel clink against stone."
Again a shaking seized Techotl, and he clenched his teeth to keep themfrom chattering.
"Perhaps they are your friends," suggested Valeria.
"We dare not chance it," he panted, and moved with frenzied activity. Heturned aside and glided through a doorway on the left which led into achamber from which an ivory staircase wound down into darkness.
"This leads to an unlighted corridor below us!" he hissed, great beadsof perspiration standing out on his brow. "They may be lurking there,too. It may all be a trick to draw us into it. But we must take thechance that they have laid their ambush in the rooms above. Comeswiftly, now!"
* * * * *
Softly as phantoms they descended the stair and came to the mouth of acorridor black as night. They crouched there for a moment, listening,and then melted into it. As they moved along, Valeria's flesh crawledbetween her shoulders in momentary expectation of a sword-thrust in thedark. But for Conan's
iron fingers gripping her arm she had no physicalcognizance of her companions. Neither made as much noise as a cat wouldhave made. The darkness was absolute. One hand, outstretched, touched awall, and occasionally she felt a door under her fingers. The hallwayseemed interminable.
Suddenly they were galvanized by a sound behind them. Valeria's fleshcrawled anew, for she recognized it as the soft opening of a door. Menhad come into the corridor behind them. Even with the thought shestumbled over something that felt like a human skull. It rolled acrossthe floor with an appalling clatter.
"Run!" yelped Techotl, a note of hysteria in his voice, and was awaydown the corridor like a flying ghost.
Again Valeria felt Conan's hand bearing her up and sweeping her along asthey raced after their guide. Conan could see in the dark no better thanshe, but he possessed a sort of instinct that made his course unerring.Without his support and guidance she would have fallen or stumbledagainst the wall. Down the corridor they sped, while the swift patter offlying feet drew closer and closer, and then suddenly Techotl panted:"Here is the stair! After me, quick! Oh, quick!"
His hand came out of the dark and caught Valeria's wrist as she stumbledblindly on the steps. She felt herself half dragged, half lifted up thewinding stair, while Conan released her and turned on the steps, hisears and instincts telling him their foes were hard at their backs. _Andthe sounds were not all those of human feet._
Something came writhing up the steps, something that slithered andrustled and brought a chill in the air with it. Conan lashed down withhis great sword and felt the blade shear through something that mighthave been flesh and bone, and cut deep into the stair beneath. Somethingtouched his foot that chilled like the touch of frost, and then thedarkness beneath him was disturbed by a frightful thrashing and lashing,and a man cried out in agony.
The next moment Conan was racing up the winding staircase, and through adoor that stood open at the head.
Valeria and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the doorand shot a bolt across it--the first Conan had seen since they left theouter gate.
Then he turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which theyhad come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conan glancedback and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressureviolently applied from the other side.
Though Techotl did not abate either his speed or his caution, he seemedmore confident now. He had the air of a man who has come into familiarterritory, within call of friends.
But Conan renewed his terror by asking: "What was that thing that Ifought on the stair?"
"The men of Xotalanc," answered Techotl, without looking back. "I toldyou the halls were full of them."
"This wasn't a man," grunted Conan. "It was something that crawled, andit was as cold as ice to the touch. I think I cut it asunder. It fellback on the men who were following us, and must have killed one of themin its death throes."
Techotl's head jerked back, his face ashy again. Convulsively hequickened his pace.
"It was the Crawler! A monster _they_ have brought out of the catacombsto aid them! What it is, we do not know, but we have found our peoplehideously slain by it. In Set's name, hasten! If they put it on ourtrail, it will follow us to the very doors of Tecuhltli!"
"I doubt it," grunted Conan. "That was a shrewd cut I dealt it on thestair."
"Hasten! Hasten!" groaned Techotl.
They ran through a series of green-lit chambers, traversed a broad hall,and halted before a giant bronze door.
Techotl said: "This is Tecuhltli!"