Part 27 (2/2)

His fingers encountered an opening and he plunged through it Whether it was the arch through which he had entered he did not know, nor did he very et out of the haunted chamber which had housed that beautiful, hideous, undead fiend for so h those black, winding tunnels were a sweating nights and glidings, and once the echo of that sweet, hellish laughter he had heard in the chamber of Akivasha He slashed ferociously at sounds and ined he heard in the darkness near hi tenuous substance thatthat he was being played with, lured deeper and deeper into ulti

And through his fear ran the sickening revulsion of his discovery The legend of Akivasha was so old, and a the evil tales told of her ran a thread of beauty and idealis youth To so many dreamers and poets and lovers she was not alone the evil princess of Stygian legend, but the sy for ever in some far realm of the Gods And this was the hideous reality

This foul perversion was the truth of that everlasting life Through his physical revulsion ran the sense of a shattered dreaold proved slime and cosmic filth A wave of futility swept over him, a dim fear of the falseness of all men's dreams and idolatries

And now he knew that his ears were not playing hi in on his that were never made by human feet; no, nor by the feet of any normal animal The underworld had its bestial life too, perhaps They were behind hi, and slowly backed away Then the sounds ceased, even before he turned his head and saw, soht

19

In the Hall of the Dead

Conan ht he had seen, his ear cocked over his shoulder, but there was no further sound of pursuit, though he _felt_ the darkness pregnant with sentient life

The gloas not stationary; itThen he saw the source The tunnel he was traversing crossed another, wider corridor so this latter tunnel filed a bizarre procession--four tall, gaunton staffs The leader held a torch above his head--a torch that burned with a curious steady glow Like phantoe of vision and vanished, with only a fading glow to tell of their passing Their appearance was indescribably eldritch They were not Stygians, not like anything Conan had ever seen He doubted if they were even hu the haunted tunnels

But his position could be no more desperate than it was Before the inhu advance at the fading of the distant illued into the other tunnel and saw, far down it, slowing sphere He stole noiselessly after theainst the wall as he saw the on some matter They turned as if to retrace their steps, and he slipped into the nearest archway Groping in the darkness to which he had becoh it, he discovered that the tunnel did not run straight, but meandered, and he fell back beyond the first turn, so that the light of the strangers should not fall on him as they passed

But as he stood there, he are of a low hum of sound from so down the corridor in that direction, he confirinal intention of following the ghoulish travelers to whatever destination ht be theirs, he set out in the direction of the voices

Presently he saw a glint of light ahead of hi into the corridor frolow at the other end On his left a narrow stone stair went upward, and instinctive caution prompted hi from beyond that flame-filled arch

The sounds fell away beneath hih a low arched door into a vast open space gloith a weird radiance

He was standing on a shadowy gallery from which he looked down into a broad dim-lit hall of colossal proportions It was a hall of the dead, which few ever see but the silent priests of Stygia Along the black walls rose tier above tier of carven, painted sarcophagi Each stood in a niche in the dusky stone, and the tiers loom above Thousands of carven roup in the nificant by that vast array of the dead

Of this group ten were priests, and though they had discarded their masks Conan knew they were the priests he had accompanied to the pyramid They stood before a tall, hawk-facedswathings And the altar see fire which pulsed and shi+olden flalow ereat red jehich lay upon the altar, and in the reflection of which the faces of the priests looked ashy and corpse-like As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he tre those silent priests, clear his ith eripped himself with iron control, and crouched down in the shadow of the stone balustrade A glance showed hiing the wall and half hidden in the shadows He glared into the di other priests or votaries, but saw only the group about the altar

In that great emptiness the voice of the hostly:

' And so the word caht hispered it, the ravens croaked of it as they flew, and the grim bats told it to the owls and the serpents that lurk in hoary ruins Werewolf and vaht The sleeping Night of the World stirred and shook its heavyof druhtened ain into the world to fulfill its cryptic destiny

'Ask ht, heard the word before Thoth-Amon who calls himself prince of all wizards There are secrets not meet for such ears even as yours, and Thoth-A

'I knew, and I went to net which drewon a river of hureatest when there is blood on the hands that grasp it, when it is wrested by slaughter frodoms totter, and the forces of nature are put in turmoil

'And here I stand, the master of the Heart, and have summoned you to come secretly, who are faithful to ht you shall witness the breaking of Thoth-Amon's chains which enslave us, and the birth of empire

'Who am I, even I, Thutothmes, to knohat powers lurk and dreaotten for three thousand years But I shall learn These shall tell me!'

He waved his hand toward the silent shapes that lined the hall