Part 28 (1/2)

'See how they sleep, staring through their carven enerals, priests, wizards, the dynasties and the nobility of Stygia for ten thousand years! The touch of the heart will awaken the the Heart throbbed and pulsed in ancient Stygia Here was its home in the centuries before it journeyed to Acheron The ancients knew its full power, and they will tell ic I restore them to life to labor for me

'I will rouse theotten wisdoe locked in those withered skulls By the lore of the dead we shall enslave the living! Aye, kings and generals and wizards of old shall be our helpers and our slaves Who shall stand before us?

'Look! This dried, shriveled thing on the altar was once Thotho He was an adept of the Black Ring He knew of the Heart He will tell us of its powers'

Lifting the great jewel, the speaker laid it on the withered breast of the an an incantation But the incantation was never finished With his hand lifted and his lips parted he froze, glaring past his acolytes, and they wheeled to stare in the direction in which he was looking

Through the black arch of a door four gaunt, black-robed shapes had filed into the great hall Their faces were dim yellow ovals in the shadow of their hoods

'Who are you?' ejaculated Thutother as the hiss of a cobra 'Are you mad, to invade the holy shrine of Set?'

The tallest of the strangers spoke, and his voice was toneless as a Khitan temple bell

'We follow Conan of Aquilonia'

'He is not here,' answered Thutothht hand with a curioushis talons

'You lie He is in this temple We tracked him froh ahis devious trail e becaain But first give us the Heart of Ahriman'

'Death is the portion ofnearer the speaker His priests closed in on cat-like feet, but the strangers did not appear to heed

'Who can look upon it without desire?' said the Khitan 'In Khitai we have heard of it It will give us power over the people which cast us out Glory and wonder dream in its crimson deeps Give it to us, before we slay you'

A fierce cry rang out as a priest leaped with a flicker of steel Before he could strike, a scaly staff licked out and touched his breast, and he fell as a deaddown on a scene of blood and horror Curved knives flashed and crimsoned, snaky staffs licked in and out, and whenever they touched a man, that man screamed and died

At the first stroke Conan had bounded up and was racing down the stairs

He caught only gli, locked in battle and strea blood; saw one Khitan, fairly hacked to pieces, yet still on his feet and dealing death, when Thutothmes smote him on the breast with his open eh naked steel had not been enough to destroy his uncanny vitality

By the tiht was all but over Three of the Khitans were down, slashed and cut to ribbons and diseians only Thutoth Khitan, his empty hand lifted like a weapon, and that hand was black as that of a negro But before he could strike, the staff in the tall Khitan's hand licked out, seeate itself as the yellow man thrust The point touched the bosoain the staff licked out, and Thutothmes reeled and fell dead, his features blotted out in a rush of blackness that made the whole of him the same hue as his enchanted hand

The Khitan turned toward the jewel that burned on the breast of the mummy, but Conan was before him

In a tense stillness the two faced each other, a down upon the of Aquilonia,' said the Khitan cal river, and over the h the hills of Argos and down the coast Not easily did we pick up your trail from Tarantia, for the priests of Asura are crafty

We lost it in Zingara, but we found your helht with the ghouls of the forests

Al these labyrinths'

Conan reflected that he had been fortunate in returning from the vampire's chamber by another route than that by which he had been led to it Otherwise he would have run full into these yellow fiends instead of sighting them from afar as they smelled out his spoor like huift was theirs

The Khitan shook his head slightly, as if reading histrail ends here'