Part 10 (1/2)

Up on top of the pyramid, Yasunga still swung his chains like a flail, while sweat ran down his ebony hide. Another pirate and a priest rolled over and over on the pavement, hands locked on each other's throats. Milo the boatswain had tangled a soldier's halberd in his chains and strove to hold the weapon down, while the soldier struggled to wrench it loose. Artanes the Zamorian fought two Antillians at once with a captured pike, which he wielded like a quarterstaff. Sigurd struggled to unlock the manacles and neck-rings of some of the pirates, while others fended off the attempts of a few priests and soldiers to get to him and recover the keys. Many of the Antillians had fled from the top of the pyramid, but some still struggled with their former captives.

With a booming war cry, Conan bounded up the steps and hurled himself into the fray. In his mail s.h.i.+rt, he was easily a match for any three of the little brown men. An Aatillian head went flying from its body to bounce and roll down the steps of the pyramid. Another man of Pta-huacan collapsed in a mess of spilled entrails. Another clutched, screaming, at the stump of a hand.

Their eyes big with superst.i.tious terror, the Antillians gave back before Conan, who lunged hither and thither like a razor-edged whirlwind, constantly s.h.i.+fting his position so that it was hard for an opponent to get a good cut or thrust at him. If he was not so agile as he had been decades before., his attack was still the most awesome thing the Antillians had ever seen.

'A demon! He is a demon!' they cried, backing away.

Soon n.o.body stood between Conan, b.l.o.o.d.y gla.s.s sword in hand, and the knot around Sigurd. The Northman looked up.

'Amral' roared Sigurd. 'By Crom and Mitra and all the G.o.ds, we thought you dead!'

'Not yet, Redbeard! I still have some killing to do.' Conan clapped the stout Vanr on one shoulder. 'What's here?'

'I'm trying to get these d.a.m.ned rings unlocked, but it takes an expert touch. Can you do it faster, ere they rush us again?'

'The key's too slow,' growled Conan. 'Let's see if gla.s.s will cut gla.s.s. Stretch that chain across the altar stone.'

The gla.s.s of the swords and that of the chains, he thought, were basically the same material. But, just as the steel of a sword is more finely tempered than the iron of an ordinary chain, so the gla.s.s of his sword might be superior to that of the gla.s.s chains. Whereas a chain must merely hold, a sword must cut. Well, he would put it to the test.

His sword flashed in the afternoon sun as he swung it above his iron-gray head. The blade whistled down, with all the power of his huge muscles behind it, to strike the altar surface with a crash. A link of the chain shattered beneath the blow, the flying shards sparkling like diamonds.

'Now the next!' cried Conan.

Chain after chain was severed, until all the pirates who were still chained were free. As they were released, they looked around for dropped weapons to s.n.a.t.c.h up before plunging back into the fray. The remaining priests and soldiers on the top of the pyramid fled with cries of despair, abandoning still more weapons to their attackers.

Conan looked below. The unleashed monsters had proved an effective diversion, engaging the attention of most of the Antillians and enabling Conan to free his s.h.i.+pmates while the number of enemies still on top of the pyramid was too small to interfere.

The square was now mostly clear. Here and there a dragon lumbered about the pavement, chasing a scampering fugitive. The soldiers who had not fled in the general exodus stood in solid clumps, forming hedgehogs of leveled spears to hold off the dragons. Priests moved among the soldiers, directing and exhorting them.

Most of the dragons, too, had fled the square. All had fed - some several times over - and their present desire was to find a quiet spot to sink into digestive torpor. Some lurched along the streets of the city after the fleeing mult.i.tudes, out through the gates and across the cornfields and vegetable gardens of the Antillians. Some plodded down to the harbor, slipped into the water, and swam with serpentine undulations along the cost. Even as Conan watched, the last pair of dragons waddled out of the square.

The priests now began directing the soldiers remaining in the square, and putting them into formation. Some priests pointed to the top of the pyramid and shouted to others, urging an attack on the pirates. Soon, several hundred littie brown warriors had been formed into ranks and files, facing the pyramid from all sides. Several soldiers trotted into the square, lugging baskets full of the Antillians' gla.s.s globes containing the soporific gas.

Conan's eyes narrowed in grim estimation. Now that the dragons were no longer fighting on the side of the pirates, he did not doubt that the well-drilled hosts of Ptahuacan would give a good account of themselves. Perhaps this square would see the end of him and his band. At least, the G.o.ds would be treated to one h.e.l.l of a magnificent last stand.

'Can we break them, Lion?' rumbled Sigurd. He slapped his bare chest and hefted a crystal cutla.s.s. 'Bowels of Nergal and b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Ishtar, but I be spoiling for a fight with those little brown b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! After days in the stinking Jakes they call a dungeon, feeding on cold swill, 'twill delight me to smash a few heads and rip out a few guts ere I fall. Say the word, comrade; we all be ready!'

Conan nodded, his eyes smoldering. He was about to lift his sword and lead the corsairs in one last, glorious charge down the stairs of the pyramid, to burst through those glittering ranks or go down before the gla.s.s-bladed weapons...

But an ominous shadow fell upon him. He looked up into the hovering, swirling cloud of blackness that was the Demon from Beyond.

Crom! How could he have forgotten this evil thing from the s.p.a.ces between the stars? The gory ritual that had summoned it into this world, from whatever unholy dimension it dwelt in, had given it shape and substance within this realm of matter. Even the disruption of the ceremony, while it may have weakened the being, had not dissolved its physical existence or broken the mighty spells that gave it life in the world of man.

It had clung, brooding, above the scenes of tumult and slaughter, viewing with cold malignancy the destruction of the Antillians and the freeing of the victims destined for its supernatural feast. Now its inhuman intelligence had moved it into action. As it hung, pulsing, above the pirate crew, it sent tentacles of mental force probing downward from its dark, turbulent center.

To Conan, it was as if icy, impalpable fingers pierced the secret places of his mind, pawing through his memories like a freebooter ransacking a temple in some conquered city. He felt the touch of alien thoughts, penetrating the roots of his inmost soul. All his vigorous manhood rebelled against this mental violation.

In the strangest battle of his life, he fought against the mind-probing tendrils of darkness. Here in this realm of thought., mind alone battled against mind. No plate armor of tempered steel or s.h.i.+eld of iron-bound oak and tanned bull's hide could resist, no iron blade or muscular arm could repel the mental tentacles that insinuated themselves into his brain.

Conan felt these searching antennae fingering and deadening the power centers of his brain., so that an icy numbness spread over his body. Little by little, his limbs lost their strength until he could barely stand.

But he fought on, grimly clinging to life and consciousness with all the ferocious tenacity of his primitive background. Never had he thought of using his mind thus as a weapon. Yet he was conscious of his mind's las.h.i.+ng out in a mental struggle with the insidious, gliding tendrils of the alien intelligence that sought to destroy his life course. He felt his mind strike out at the slithering tentacles of the mind called Xotli, tearing them loose from his centers of mental energy.

With deadly swiftness, the otherworldly mind turned to a different kind of attack. Its tentacles attacked the centers of his physical consciousness and began draining vital energy from him. His sight dimmed; his consciousness blurred. The white plaster on the front of the little temple atop the pyramid turned yellow, and invisible bells rang in his ears. He felt himself slipping away, falling down a well into cold blackness ...

But still he fought on, striving to s.h.i.+eld his mind from the thing that sucked the life force from him.

In the roaring whirlpool of his struggling mind, a dim wisp of memory rose to the turbulent surface of his consciousness. He recalled standing in spirit form in the black heart of Mount Golamira, while the splendid specter of the sage Epemitreus spoke to him. Once more he heard the voice of the ancient philisopher, whispering: And one gift alone I may give you. Bear it through every trial, for in your Hour of greatest need it will be your salvation. Nay, I can tell you naught more. In time of need, your heart will tell you how to use this talisman.

Dimly, Conan remembered the coldly glittering thing he had found in his hand upon awakening from the prophetic dream., in the silence of his royal bedchamber - the jeweled talisman he had worn on a silver chain about his neck ever since, through all his subsequent adventures.

The strength had drained from his huge limbs, but he still bore within him the unquenchable vitality that had brought him through so many deadly perils in the course of his long and action-filled life. Now, in this hour of his greatest peril on earth, he called upon his hidden resources.

One ma.s.sive, scarred hand rose to his throat, pulled the crystal phoenix out from beneath his mail s.h.i.+rt, and broke the chain with a jerk.

As a black vise closed about his brain, he dropped the talisman. Dimly, he heard it tinkle on the stone.

With his last ounce of consciousness, as his mind spun into a whirling void, he brought his booted heel down upon the amulet and crushed it into powder. Then he pitched forward into blackness.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

G.o.dS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS.

And when you face the Kraken's might, that on the sacrifice has fed, Stand fast, where other men have fled, and let the crystal phoenix smite!

- The Visions of Epemitreus

From some vast distance, across nighted gulfs of cold and darkness, a far, faint voice was calling him . . .

As consciousness returned to Conan's brain, sensation filtered back into his body. He felt h.o.r.n.y hands clutching him and rough stone sc.r.a.ping against his dragging legs. He gasped for air, choked, and opened bewildered eyes, to find himself supported between the wheezing hulk of Sigurd Redbeard on one side and the turbaned form of Goram Singh on the other.

'Set me down, in Crom's name,' he grunted. 'I can walk by myself.'

They stopped and helped him to stand. 'I think so, anyway' he grumbled, as his numb limbs folded under him. He would have pitched forward down the slope of the pyramid if his comrades had not caught him and propped him up again.

They sat him down on one of the steps of the stone stair that led up the face of the pyramid. Conan felt a million hot needles in his limbs as circulation returned. He looked around, gathering his faculties. .

A huge, strange silence reigned over the scene. His men had dragged him halfway down the stair to the base of the pyramid. At the base, ranks of guards were drawn up. But the small brown warriors in glittering gla.s.s armor paid no heed to the pirates. With staring eyes and expressions of awe and terror, they gaped upward.

Turning to look back and up over his shoulder, Oman felt his marrow freeze. High above them all, over the temple atop the black-and-scarlet pyramid., a strange force pulsed., flickered, and grew.