Part 36 (1/2)

”Black last night against the moon,” grunted Conan, his eyes clouding with the abysmal superst.i.tion of the barbarian. ”Blood-red against the sun this dawn. I like not that city.”

But they went on, and as they went Conan pointed out the fact that no road ran to the city from the west.

”No cattle have trampled the plain on this side of the village,” said he. ”No plough has touched the earth for years maybe centuries. No track shows in the dust. But look once this plain was cultivated.”

Valeria saw the ancient irrigation ditches and the long dried stream-bed. On each side of the city the plain stretched to the forest edge that marched in a vast, dim ring. Vision did not extend beyond that ring.

The sun was high in the eastern sky when they stood before the great gate in the western wall, in the shadow of the lofty rampart. The city lay silent as the forest they had escaped. Rust flecked the iron bracings of the heavy bronze gate. Spider webs glistened thickly on hinge and sill and bolted panel.

”It has not been opened for years,” exclaimed Valeria, awed by the brooding silence of the place.

”A dead city,” grunted Conan. ”That's why the ditches were broken and the plain untouched.”

”But who built it? Who dwelt here? Where did they go? Why did they abandon it?”

”Who can say? There are deserted, mysterious cities scattered about in desert spots of the world. Maybe a roving tribe of Stygians built it long ago. Maybe not. It doesn't look like Stygian architecture much. Maybe they were wiped out by enemies, or a plague exterminated them.”

”In that case their treasures may still be gathering dust and cobwebs there,” suggested Valeria, the acquisitive instincts of her profession waking her, prodded too by feminine curiosity. ”Can we open that gate? Let's go in and explore a bit.”

Conan eyed the heavy portal dubiously, but placed his ma.s.sive shoulder against it and thrust with all the power of his muscular calves and thighs. With a rasping screech of rusty hinges the gate moved inward and Conan instinctively drew his sword and peered in. Valeria crowded him to stare over his shoulder. They both expressed surprize.

318.

They were not looking into an open street or court as one would have expected. The opened gate gave directly into a long, broad hall that ran away and away until its vista was rendered indistinct by distance. It must have been a hundred and fifty feet broad, and from floor to ceiling it was a greater distance. The floor was of a curious dull red stone that seemed to smolder as if with the reflection of flames. The walls were of a curious semi-translucent green substance.

”Jade, or I'm a Shemite!” swore Conan.

”Not in such quant.i.ties!” protested Valeria.

”I've looted enough from the Khitan caravans to know what I'm talking about,” he a.s.serted.

The ceiling was vaulted and of some substance like lapis lazuli, adorned with great green stones that shone with a poisonous radiance.

”Green fire stones,” growled Conan. ”That's what the people of Punt call them. They're supposed to be the petrified eyes of the Golden Serpents. They glow like a cat's eyes in the dark. This hall would be lighted by them at night, but it would be a devilish ghostly illumination. Let's look about. We may find a cache of jewels.”

They entered, leaving the door ajar. Valeria wondered how many centuries had pa.s.sed since the light of outer day had filtered into that great hall.

But light was coming in somewhere, and she saw its source. It came through some of the doors along the side walls which stood open. In the splotches of shadow between, the green jewels winked like the eyes of angry cats. Beneath their feet the lurid floor smoldered with changing hues and colors of flame. It was like treading the floors of h.e.l.l with evil stars blinking overhead.

”I believe this hallway goes clean through the city to the eastern gate,” grunted Conan. ”I seem to glimpse a gate at the other end.”

Valeria shrugged her white shoulders.

”Your eyes are better than mine, though I'm accounted sharp-eyed among the sea-rovers.”

They turned into an open door at random, and traversed a series of empty chambers, floored like the hall, with the same green jade walls or walls of marble or ivory. Bronze or gold or silver freize-work adorned the walls. In some of the ceilings the green-fire stones were set; in some they were lacking. Tables and seats of marble, jade or lapis lazuli were plentiful 319.

throughout the chambers, but nowhere did they find any windows, or doors that opened into streets or courts. Each door merely opened into another chamber or hall. Some of the chambers were lighter than others, through a system of skylights in the ceilings opaque but translucent sheets of some crystalline substance.

”Why don't we come to a street?” grumbled Valeria. ”This palace or whatever we're in must be as big as the palace of the king of Turan.”

”They must not have perished of plague,” said Conan, meditating upon the mystery of the empty city. ”Otherwise we'd find skeletons. Maybe the city became haunted and everybody got up and left. Maybe ”

”Maybe, h.e.l.l!” broke in Valeria. ”We'll never know. Look at these freizes. They portray men.”

Conan scanned them and shook his head.

”I never saw people like them. But there's the smack of the East about them Vendhya, maybe, or Kosala.”

”Were you a king in Kosala?” she asked, masking her keen interest in derision.

”No. But I was a war-chief of the Afghulis who dwell in the Himelian mountains above the borders of Vendhya. These people might have been Kosalans. But why the h.e.l.l should Kosalans be building a city this far to the West?”

The freizes portrayed slender, dark-skinned men and women, with finely-chiseled features.

They wore long robes and many jeweled ornaments. Their complection, cleverly reproduced, was olive.

”Easterners, all right,” grunted Conan. ”But from where I don't know. Let's climb that stair.”

The stair he mentioned was an ivory spiral that wound up from the chamber they were traversing. They mounted and came into a larger chamber, which also was without windows. A greenish skylight let in a vague radiance.

”h.e.l.l!” Valeria sat down disgustedly on a jade bench. ”The people who lived in this city must have taken all their treasures with them. I'm getting tired of wandering around here at random.”

”Let's have a look through that door over there,” suggested Conan.

”You have a look,” advised Valeria. ”I'm going to sit here and rest my feet.”

320.

Conan disappeared through the door, and Valeria leaned back with her hands clasped behind her head, and thrust her booted legs out in front of her. These rooms and silent halls with their gleaming green cl.u.s.ters of ornaments and smoldering crimson floors were beginning to depress her. She wished they could find their way out of the maze into which they had wandered and emerge into a street. She idly wondered how many furtive, dark feet had rustled over those flaming floors in past centuries, how many deeds of cruelty and mystery those flaming ceiling- gems had looked down upon.

It was a faint noise that brought her out of her reflections. She was on her feet with her sword in her hand before she realized what it was that had disturbed her. Conan had not returned, and she knew it was not him she had heard.

The sound had come from somewhere beyond a door that stood opposite from the one by which the Cimmerian gone. Soundlessly on her soft leather footgear she glided to the door and looked through. It opened on a gallery that ran along a wall above a hall. She crept to the heavy bal.u.s.trades and peered between them.

A man was stealing along the hall.

The unexpected shock of seeing a stranger in a deserted city almost brought a startled oath to Valeria's lips. Crouching down behind the stone bal.u.s.trades, with every nerve tingling, she glared at the stealthy figure.

The man in no way resembled the figures depicted on the freize. He was slightly above middle height, very dark skinned, though not negroid. He was naked but for a scanty loin-cloth that only partially covered his muscular hips, and a broad leather girdle about his lean waist. His long black hair hung in lank strands about his shoulders. He was gaunt, but knots and cords of muscles stood out on his arms and legs. There was no symmetry of contour; he was built with an economy that was almost repellant.

Yet it was not so much his physical appearance that impressed the woman who watched him, as his att.i.tude. He slunk along the hall in a semi-crouch, darting glances to right and left. She saw the cruel curved blade in his right hand shake with the intensity of whatever emotion it was that made him tremble as he stole along. He was afraid was shaking in the grip of some frightful terror. That he feared some imminent peril was evident. When he turned his head she caught the blaze of wild eyes among the lank hair. On his tiptoes he glided across the hall and vanished through an open door, first halting and casting a fiercely questioning look about him.

A moment she heard a choking cry and then silence again.

Who was the fellow? What did he fear in this empty city? Plagued by these and similar questions, Valeria acted on impulse. She glided along the gallery until she came to a door 321.

which she believed opened into a room over the one in which the dark-skinned stranger had vanished. To her pleasure she came upon a gallery similar to the one she had just quitted, and a stair led down into the chamber.

This chamber was not as well lighted as some of the others. A trick of the skylight above caused a corner of the chamber to remain in shadow. Valeria's eyes widened. The man she had seen was still in the chamber.