Part 39 (1/2)
”Who is Thog?” de appraising stare that brought color to Natala's face and made her bite her small red lip
”Sit down on that divan and I will tell you,” she said ”But first tell me your names”
”I ahter of Brythunia,” he answered ”We are refugees of an army destroyed on the borders of Kush But I aht steal up on h, she seated herself, stretching out her supple limbs with studied abandon
”Be at ease,” she advised ”If Thog wishes you, he will take you, wherever you are That ive one great cry, and then fall silent? In his frenzy, he ht to escape No runted noncoe of a couch, his saber across his knees, his eyes wandering suspiciously about the cha hier woman with suspicion and resentnificant before this glamorous beauty, and she could not mistake the look in the dark eyes which feasted on every detail of the bronzed giant's physique
”What is this place, and who are these people?” demanded Conan
”This city is called Xuthal; it is very ancient It is built over an oasis, which the founders of Xuthal found in their wanderings They cao that not even their descendants ree”
”Surely there are not many of them; these palaces seeht think The city is really one great palace, with every building inside the walls closely connected with the others Youthese chambers for hours and see no one At other times, you would meet hundreds of the inhabitants”
”How is that?” Conan inquired uneasily; this savored too strongly of sorcery for comfort
”Much of the time these people lie in sleep Their drea life You have heard of the black lotus? In certain pits of the city it grows Through the ages they have cultivated it, until, instead of death, its juice induces dreaeous and fantastic In these dreaue, erratic, and without plan They dreaain
They seldoin, but leave it half coain into the slumber of the black lotus That er, prepared the ot about it and wandered away to dreaet their food?” interrupted Conan ”I saw no fields or vineyards outside the city Have they orchards and cattle-pens within the walls?”
She shook her head ”They manufacture their own food out of the primal eleed with their dreaiants, who built this h the race became slaves to their curious passions, soe still rehts? They are jewels, fused with radiulow, and rub theuish thele exaotten They take little interest in waking life, choosing to lie most of the tiate ” began Conan
”Was doubtless slu Sleepers of the lotus are like the dead Animation is apparently suspended It is in of life The spirit has left the body and is roaate was a good exauarding the gate, where custoh no enemy has ever advanced across the desert In other parts of the city you would find other guards, generally sleeping as soundly as the ate”
Conan mulled over this for a space
”Where are the people now?”
”Scattered in different parts of the city; lying on couches, on silken divans, in cushi+on-littered alcoves, on fur-covered daises; all wrapt in the shi+ning veil of dreams”
Conan felt the skin twitch between histo think of hundreds of people lying cold and still throughout the tapestried palaces, their glassy eyes turned unseeingly upward He re that stole through the chambers and carried away the man on the dais?”
A shudder twitched her ivory li, the Ancient, the God of Xuthal, ells in the sunken dome in the center of the city He has always dwelt in Xuthal Whether he came here with the ancient founders, or was here when they built the city, none knows But the people of Xuthal worshi+p hiular intervals he grows hungry, and then he steals through the secret corridors and the di prey Then none is safe”
Natala hty neck as if to resist an effort to drag her frohast ”You mean to tell me these people lie down cal thery,” she repeated ”A God ia the people lived under the shadow of the priests None ever knehen he or she would be seized and dragged to the altar What difference whether the priests give a victim to the Gods, or the God comes for his own victirowled, ”nor of Natala's either The Hyborians do not sacrifice humans to their God, Mitra, and as fora Cimmerian to the altar! There'd be blood spilt, but not as the priest intended”