dark hand hissed past him, he struckback with the fury of a roused python, and the long straight bladeimpaled his assailant and stood out a foot and a half between hisshoulders.
'So!' Conan tore his sword free as the victim sagged to the floor,gasping and gurgling. The man writhed briefly and stiffened. In thedying light Conan saw a black body and ebon countenance, hideous in theblue glare. He had killed Gwarunga.
Conan turned from the corpse to the goddess. Thongs about her knees andbreast held her upright against a stone pillar, and her thick hair,fastened to the column, held her head up. At a few yards' distance thesebonds were not visible in the uncertain light.
'He must have come to after I descended into the tunnel,' mutteredConan. 'He must have suspected I was down there. So he pulled out thedagger'--Conan stooped and wrenched the identical weapon from thestiffening fingers, glanced at it and replaced it in his owngirdle--'and shut the door. Then he took Yelaya to befool his brotheridiots. That was he shouting a while ago. You couldn't recognize hisvoice, under this echoing roof. And that bursting blue flame--I thoughtit looked familiar. It's a trick of the Stygian priests. Thutmekri musthave given some of it to Gwarunga.'
He could easily have reached this cavern ahead of his companions.Evidently familiar with the plan of the caverns by hearsay or by mapshanded down in the priestcraft, he had entered the cave after theothers, carrying the goddess, followed a circuitous route through thetunnels and chambers, and ensconced himself and his burden on thebalcony while Gorulga and the other acolytes were engaged in theirendless rituals.
The blue glare had faded, but now Conan was aware of another glow,emanating from the mouth of one of the corridors that opened on theledge. Somewhere down that corridor there was another field ofphosphorus, for he recognized the faint steady radiance. The corridorled in the direction the priests had taken, and he decided to follow it,rather than descend into the darkness of the great cavern below.Doubtless it connected with another gallery in some other chamber, whichmight be the destination of the priests. He hurried down it, theillumination growing stronger as he advanced, until he could make outthe floor and the walls of the tunnel. Ahead of him and below he couldhear the priests chanting again.
Abruptly a doorway in the left-hand wall was limned in the phosphorusglow, and to his ears came the sound of soft, hysterical sobbing. Hewheeled, and glared through the door.
He was looking again into a chamber hewn out of solid rock, not anatural cavern like the others. The domed roof shone with thephosphorous light, and the walls were almost covered with arabesques ofbeaten gold.
Near the farther wall on a granite throne, staring for ever toward thearched doorway, sat the monstrous and obscene Pteor, the god of thePelishtim, wrought in brass, with his exaggerated attributes reflectingthe grossness of his cult. And in his lap sprawled a limp white figure.
'Well, I'll be damned!' muttered Conan. He glanced suspiciously aboutthe chamber, seeing no other entrance or evidence of occupation, andthen advanced noiselessly and looked down at the girl whose slimshoulders shook with sobs of abject misery, her face sunk in her arms.From thick bands of gold on the idol's arms slim gold chains ran tosmaller bands on her wrists. He laid a hand on her naked shoulder andshe started convulsively, shrieked, and twisted her tear-stained facetoward him.
'Conan!' She made a spasmodic effort to go into the usual clinch, butthe chains hindered her. He cut through the soft gold as close to herwrists as he could, grunting: 'You'll have to wear these bracelets untilI can find a chisel or a file. Let go of me, damn it! You actresses aretoo damned emotional. What happened to you, anyway?'
'When I went back into the oracle chamber,' she whimpered, 'I saw thegoddess lying on the dais as I'd first seen her. I called out to you andstarted to run to the door--then something grabbed me from behind. Itclapped a hand over my mouth and carried me through a panel in the wall,and down some steps and along a dark hall. I didn't see what it was thathad hold of me until we passed through a big metal door and came into atunnel whose roof was alight, like this chamber.
'Oh, I nearly fainted when I saw! They are not humans! They are gray,hairy devils that walk like men and speak a gibberish no human couldunderstand. They stood there and seemed to be waiting, and once Ithought I heard somebody trying the door. Then one of the things pulleda metal lever in the wall, and something crashed on the other side ofthe door.
'Then they carried me on and on through winding tunnels and up stonestairways into this chamber, where they chained me on the knees of thisabominable idol, and then they went away. Oh, Conan, what are they?'
'Servants of Bit-Yakin,' he grunted. 'I found a manuscript that told mea number of things, and then stumbled upon some frescoes that told methe rest. Bit-Yakin was a Pelishtim who wandered into the valley withhis servants after the people of Alkmeenon had deserted it. He found thebody of Princess Yelaya, and discovered that the priests returned fromtime to time to make offerings to her, for even then she was worshippedas a goddess.
'He made an oracle of her, and he was the voice of the oracle, speakingfrom a niche he cut in the wall behind the ivory dais. The priests neversuspected, never saw him or his servants for they always hid themselveswhen the men came. Bit-Yakin lived and died here without ever beingdiscovered by the priests. Crom knows how long he dwelt here, but itmust have been for centuries. The wise men of the Pelishtim know how toincrease the span of their lives for hundreds of years. I've seen someof them myself. Why he lived here alone, and why he played the part oforacle no ordinary human can guess, but I believe the oracle part was tokeep the city inviolate and sacred, so he could remain undisturbed. Heate the food the priests brought as an offering to Yelaya, and hisservants ate other things--I've always known there was a subterraneanriver flowing away from the lake where the people of the Puntishhighlands throw their dead. That river runs under this palace. They haveladders hung over the water where they can hang and fish for the corpsesthat come floating through. Bit-Yakin recorded everything on parchmentand painted walls.
'But he died at last, and his servants mummified him according toinstructions he gave them before his death, and stuck him in a cave inthe cliffs. The rest is easy to guess. His servants, who were even morenearly immortal than he, kept on dwelling here, but the next time a highpriest came to consult the oracle, not having a master to restrain them,they tore him to pieces. So since then--until Gorulga--nobody came totalk to the oracle.
'It's obvious they've been renewing the garments and ornaments of thegoddess, as they'd seen Bit-Yakin do. Doubtless there's a sealed chambersomewhere where the silks are kept from decay. They clothed the goddessand brought her back to the oracle room after Zargheba had stolen her.And by the way, they took off Zargheba's head and hung it in a thicket.'
She shivered, yet at the same time breathed a sigh of relief.
'He'll never whip me again.'
'Not this side of hell,' agreed Conan. 'But come on. Gwarunga ruined mychances with his stolen goddess. I'm going to follow the priests andtake my chance of stealing the loot from them after they get it. And youstay close to me. I can't spend all my time looking for you.'
'But the servants of Bit-Yakin!' she whispered fearfully.
'We'll have to take our chance,' he grunted. 'I don't know what's intheir minds, but so far they haven't shown any disposition to come outand fight in the open. Come on.'
Taking her wrist he led her out of the chamber and down the corridor. Asthey advanced they heard the chanting of the priests, and mingling withthe sound the low sullen rushing of waters. The light grew strongerabove them as they emerged on a high-pitched gallery of a great cavernand looked down on a scene weird and fantastic.
Above them gleamed the phosphorescent roof; a hundred feet below themstretched the smooth floor of the cavern. On the far side this floor wascut by a deep, narrow stream brimming its rocky channel. Rushing out ofimpenetrable gloom, it swirled across the cavern and was lost again indarkness. The visible surface reflected the radiance above; the darkseething water
s glinted as if flecked with living jewels, frosty blue,lurid red, shimmering green, an ever-changing iridescence.
Conan and his companion stood upon one of the gallery-like ledges thatbanded the curve of the lofty wall, and from this ledge a natural bridgeof stone soared in a breath-taking arch over the vast gulf of the cavernto join a much smaller ledge on the opposite side, across the river. Tenfeet below it another, broader arch spanned the cave. At either end acarven stair joined the extremities of these flying arches.
Conan's gaze, following the curve of the arch that swept away from theledge on which they stood, caught a glint of light that was not thelurid phosphorus of the cavern. On that small ledge opposite them therewas an opening in the cave wall through which stars were glinting.
But his full attention was drawn to the scene beneath them. The priestshad reached their destination. There in a sweeping angle of the cavernwall stood a stone altar, but there was no idol upon it. Whether therewas one behind it, Conan could not ascertain, because some trick of thelight, or the sweep of the wall, left the space behind the altar intotal darkness.
The priests had stuck their torches into holes in the stone floor,forming a semicircle of fire in front of the altar at a distance ofseveral yards. Then the priests themselves formed a semicircle insidethe crescent of torches, and Gorulga, after lifting his arms aloft ininvocation, bent to the altar and laid hands on it. It lifted and tiltedbackward on its hinder edge, like the lid of a chest, revealing a smallcrypt.
Extending a long arm into the recess, Gorulga brought up a small brasschest. Lowering the altar back into place, he set the chest on it, andthrew back the lid. To the eager watchers on the high gallery it seemedas if the action had released a blaze of living fire which throbbed andquivered about the opened chest. Conan's heart leaped and his handcaught at his hilt. The Teeth of Gwahlur at last! The treasure thatwould make its possessor the richest man in the world! His breath camefast between his clenched teeth.
Then he was suddenly aware that a new element had entered into the lightof the torches and of the phosphorescent roof, rendering both void.Darkness stole around the altar, except for that glowing spot of evilradiance cast by the teeth of Gwahlur, and that grew and grew. Theblacks froze into basaltic statues, their shadows streaming grotesquelyand gigantically out behind them.
The altar was laved in the glow now, and the astounded features ofGorulga stood out in sharp relief. Then the mysterious space behind thealtar swam into the widening illumination. And slowly with the crawlinglight, figures became visible, like shapes growing out of the night andsilence.
At first they seemed like gray stone statues, those motionless shapes,hairy, man-like, yet hideously human; but their eyes were alive, coldsparks of gray icy fire. And as the weird glow lit their bestialcountenances, Gorulga screamed and fell backward, throwing up his longarms in a gesture of frenzied horror.
But a longer arm shot across the altar and a misshapen hand locked onhis throat. Screaming and fighting, the high priest was dragged backacross the altar; a hammer-like fist smashed down, and Gorulga's crieswere stilled. Limp and broken he sagged across the altar, his brainsoozing from his crushed skull. And then the servants of Bit-Yakin surgedlike a bursting flood from hell on the black priests who stood likehorror-blasted images.
Then there was slaughter, grim and appalling.
Conan saw black bodies tossed like chaff in the inhuman hands of theslayers, against whose horrible strength and agility the daggers andswords of the priests were ineffective. He saw men lifted bodily andtheir heads cracked open against the stone altar. He saw a flamingtorch, grasped in a monstrous hand, thrust inexorably down the gullet ofan agonized wretch who writhed in vain against the arms that pinionedhim. He saw a man torn in two pieces, as one might tear a chicken, andthe bloody fragments hurled clear across the cavern. The massacre was asshort and devastating as the rush of a hurricane. In a burst of redabysmal ferocity it was over, except for one wretch who fled screamingback the way the priests had come, pursued by a swarm of blood-dabbledshapes of horror which reached out their red-smeared hands for him.Fugitive and pursuers vanished down the black tunnel, and the screams ofthe human came back dwindling and confused by the distance.
Muriela was on her knees clutching Conan's legs, her face pressedagainst his knee and her eyes tightly shut. She was a quaking, quiveringmold of abject terror. But Conan was galvanized. A quick glance acrossat the aperture where the stars shone, a glance down at the chest thatstill blazed open on the blood-smeared altar, and he saw and seized thedesperate gamble.
'I'm going after that chest!' he grated. 'Stay here!'
'Oh, Mitra, no!' In an agony of fright she fell to the floor and caughtat his sandals. 'Don't! Don't! Don't leave me!'
'Lie still and keep your mouth shut!' he snapped, disengaging himselffrom her frantic clasp.
He disregarded the tortuous stair. He dropped from ledge to ledge withreckless haste. There was no sign of the monsters as his feet hit thefloor. A few of the torches still flared in their sockets, thephosphorescent glow throbbed and quivered, and the river flowed with analmost articulate muttering, scintillant with undreamed radiances. Theglow that had heralded the appearance of the servants had vanished withthem. Only the light of the jewels in the brass chest shimmered andquivered.
He snatched the chest, noting its contents in one lustfulglance--strange, curiously shapen stones that burned with an icy,non-terrestrial fire. He slammed the lid, thrust the chest under hisarm, and ran back up the steps. He had no desire to encounter thehellish servants of Bit-Yakin. His glimpse of them in action haddispelled any illusion concerning their fighting ability. Why they hadwaited so long before striking at the invaders he was unable to say.What human could guess the motives or thoughts of these monstrosities?That they were possessed of craft and intelligence equal to humanity hadbeen demonstrated. And there on the cavern floor lay crimson proof oftheir bestial ferocity.
The Corinthian girl still cowered on the gallery where he had left her.He caught her wrist and yanked her to her feet, grunting: 'I guess it'stime to go!'
Too bemused with terror to be fully aware of what was going on, the girlsuffered herself to be led across the dizzy span. It was not until theywere poised over the rushing water that she looked down, voiced astartled yelp and would have fallen but for Conan's massive arm abouther. Growling an objurgation in her ear, he snatched her up under hisfree arm and swept her, in a flutter of limply waving arms and legs,across the arch and into the aperture that opened at the other end.Without bothering to set her on her feet, he hurried through the shorttunnel into which this aperture opened. An instant later they emergedupon a narrow ledge on the outer side of the cliffs that circled thevalley. Less than a hundred feet below them the jungle waved in thestarlight.
Looking down, Conan vented a gusty sigh of relief. He believed that hecould negotiate the descent, even though burdened with the jewels andthe girl; although he doubted if even he, unburdened, could haveascended at that spot. He set the chest, still smeared with Gorulga'sblood and clotted with his brains, on the ledge, and was about to removehis girdle in order to tie the box to his back, when he was galvanizedby a sound behind him, a sound sinister and unmistakable.
'Stay here!' he snapped at the bewildered Corinthian girl. 'Don't move!'And drawing his sword, he glided into the tunnel, glaring back into thecavern.
Halfway across the upper span he saw a gray deformed shape. One of theservants of Bit-Yakin was on his trail. There was no doubt that thebrute had seen them and was following them. Conan did not hesitate. Itmight be easier to defend the mouth of the tunnel--but this fight mustbe finished quickly, before the other servants could return.
He ran out on the span, straight toward the oncoming monster. It was noape, neither was it a man. It was some shambling horror spawned in themysterious, nameless jungles of the south, where strange life teemed inthe reeking rot without the dominance of man, and drums thundered intemples that had never known the tread of a human foot. Ho
w the ancientPelishtim had gained lordship over them--and with it eternal exile fromhumanity--was a foul riddle about which Conan did not care to speculate,even if he had had opportunity.
Man and monster; they met at the highest arch of the span, where, ahundred feet below, rushed the furious black water. As the monstrousshape with its leprous gray body and the features of a carven, unhumanidol loomed over him, Conan struck as a wounded tiger strikes, withevery ounce of thew and fury behind the blow. That stroke would havesheared a human body asunder; but the bones of the servant of Bit-Yakinwere like tempered steel. Yet even tempered steel could not wholly havewithstood that furious stroke. Ribs and shoulder-bone parted and bloodspouted from the great gash.
There was no time for a second stroke. Before the Cimmerian could lifthis blade again or spring clear, the sweep of a giant arm knocked himfrom the span as a fly is flicked from a wall. As he plunged downwardthe rush of the river was like a knell in his ears, but his twisted bodyfell halfway across the lower arch. He wavered there precariously forone blood-chilling instant, then his clutching fingers hooked over thefarther edge, and he scrambled to safety, his sword still in his otherhand.
As he sprang up, he saw the monster, spurting blood hideously, rushtoward the cliff-end of the bridge, obviously intending to descend thestair that connected the arches and renew the feud. At the very ledgethe brute paused in mid-flight--and Conan saw it too--Muriela, with thejewel chest under her arm, stood staring wildly in the mouth of thetunnel.
With a triumphant bellow the monster scooped her up under one arm,snatched the jewel chest with the other hand as she dropped it, andturning, lumbered back across the