Part 25 (1/2)

When the lookout did sight a sail, it was to the north, not the south

Far on the skyline behind thealley, with full spread of purple sail The blacks urged Conan to turn and plunder it, but he shook his head So toward the ports of Stygia That night, before darkness shut down, the lookout's last glialley on the horizon, and at dawn it was still hanging on their tail, afar off, tiny in the distance Conan wondered if it was following hiical reason for such a supposition But he paid little heed

Each day that carried him farther southward filled him with fiercer impatience Doubts never assailed him As he believed in the rise and set of the sun he believed that a priest of Set had stolen the Heart of Ahriia? The blacks sensed his eagerness, and toiled as they had never toiled under the lash, though ignorant of his goal They anticipated a red career of pillage and plunder and were content The men of the southern isles knew no other trade; and the Kushi+tes of the crew joined whole-heartedly in the prospect of looting their own people, with the callousness of their race Blood-ties ain everything

Soon the character of the coastline changed No longer they sailed past steep cliffs with blue hills e of broad e and swept away and away into the hazy distance Here were few harbors and fewer ports, but the green plain was dotted with the cities of the Shereen plains, and the ziggurats of the cities glea whitely in the sun, so-lands moved the herds of cattle, and squat, broad riders with cylindrical helmets and curled blue-black beards, with bows in their hands This was the shore of the lands of Shem, where there was no law save as each city-state could enforce its own Far to the eastward, Conan knew, the ave way to desert, where there were no cities and the nomadic tribes roamed unhindered

Still as they plied southward, past the changeless panoraan to alter Clurew denser The shoreline becareen fronds and trees, and behind them rose bare, sandy hills Streaetation grew thick and of vast variety

So at last they passed the led its floith the ocean, and saw the great black walls and towers of Kheainst the southern horizon

The river was the Styx, the real border of Stygia Khereatest port, and at that ti dwelt at ned the priestcraft; though ion lay far inland, in a mysterious, deserted city near the bank of the Styx This river, springing froia, ran northward for a thousand miles before it turned and floard for some hundreds of miles, to e no lights, stole past the port in the night, and before dawn discovered her, anchored in a small bay a few reen tangle ofwith crocodiles and serpents Discovery was extremely unlikely Conan knew the place of old; he had hidden there before, in his corsair days

As they slid silently past the city whose great black bastions rose on the jutting prongs of land which locked the harbor, torches gleamed and smoldered luridly, and to their ears came the low thunder of drums The port was not croith shi+ps, as were the harbors of Argos The Stygians did not base their glory and power upon shi+ps and fleets

Trading-vessels and war-galleys, indeed, they had, but not in proportion to their inland strength Many of their craft plied up and down the great river, rather than along the sea-coasts

The Stygians were an ancient race, a dark, inscrutable people, powerful and o their rule had stretched far north of the Styx, beyond the meadowlands of Shem, and into the fertile uplands now inhabited by the peoples of Koth and Ophir and Argos Their borders had marched with those of ancient Acheron But Acheron had fallen, and the barbaric ancestors of the Hyborians had swept southward in wolfskins and horned hel the ancient rulers of the land before theotten

All day the _Venturer_ lay at anchor in the tiny bay, walled in with green branches and tangled vines through which flitted gay-pluht-scaled, silent reptiles Toward sundown a s and finding that which Conan desired--a Stygian fisherht hiily built res of that coast

He was naked except for his silken breeks, for, like the Hyrkanians, even the coia wore silk; and in his boat was a wide ainst the chill of the night

He fell to his knees before Conan, expecting torture and death

'Stand on your legs, ,' said the Cimmerian impatiently, who found it difficult to understand abject terror 'You won't be haralley returning froos, put into Khemi within the last few days?'

'Aye, my lord,' answered the fisherman 'Only yesterday at dawn the priest Thutothe far to the north Men say he has been to Messantia'

'What did he bring from Messantia?'

'Alas, o to Messantia?' demanded Conan

'Nay, my lord, I am but a common man Who am I to know the minds of the priests of Set? I can only speak what I have seen and what I have heard reat ih of what none knows; and it is well known that the lord Thutothreat haste Now he is returned, but what he did in Argos, or what cargo he brought back, none knows, not even the seaalley Men say that he has opposed Thoth-Amon, who is the master of all priests of Set, and dwells in Luxur, and that Thutothmes seeks hidden power to overthrow the Great One But who am I to say? When priests ith one another a common man can but lie on his belly and hope neither treads upon him'

Conan snarled in nervous exasperation at this servile philosophy, and turned to hisalone into Khemi to find this thief Thutothmes Keep this man prisoner, but see that you do hi! Do you think we can sail into the harbor and take the city by stor the claarments and donned the prisoner's silk breeches and sandals, and the band from the man's hair, but scorned the short fisheria were not allowed to wear swords, and theblade, but Conan buckled to his hip a Ghanata knife, a weapon borne by the fierce desert ians, a broad, heavy, slightly curved blade of fine steel, edged like a razor and long enough to disuarded by the corsairs, Conan climbed into the fisher's boat

'Wait for me until dawn,' he said 'If I haven't come then, I'll never come, so hasten southward to your own homes'