Part 28 (2/2)

'Why have you hounded me?' demanded Conan, poised to er

'It was a debt to pay,' answered the Khitan 'To you who are about to die, I will not withhold knowledge We were vassals of the king of Aquilonia, Valerius Long we served him, but of that service we are free now--ation I shall return to Aquilonia with two hearts; for myself the Heart of Ahriman; for Valerius the heart of Conan A kiss of the staff that was cut fro Tree of Death--'

The staff licked out like the dart of a viper, but the slash of Conan's knife was quicker The staff fell in writhing halves, there was another flicker of the keen steel like a jet of lightning, and the head of the Khitan rolled to the floor

Conan wheeled and extended his hand toward the jewel--then he shrank back, his hair bristling, his blood congealing icily

For no longer a withered brown thing lay on the altar The jewel shi+ ? Conan could not decide The eyes were like dark lass under which shone inhu the jewel in his hand He towered beside the altar, dusky, naked, with a face like a carven ie Mutely he extended his hand toward Conan, with the jewel throbbing like a living heart within it Conan took it, with an eery sensation of receiving gifts from the hand of the dead He somehow realized that the proper incantations had not been made--the conjurement had not been completed--life had not been fully restored to his corpse

'Who are you?' demanded the Cimmerian

The answer ca of water from stalactites in subterranean caverns 'I was Thothmekri; I am dead'

'Well, lead me out of this accursed te

With measured, mechanical steps the dead lance back showed hiain the vast, shadowy hall with its tiers of sarcophagi, the dead men sprawled about the altar; the head of the Khitan he had slain stared sightless up at the sweeping shadows

The glow of the jewel illuolden fire Once Conan caught a glimpse of ivory flesh in the shadows, believed he saw the valow of the jewel; and with her, other less human shapes scuttled or shaht on, looking neither to right nor left, his pace as changeless as the traathered thick on Conan's flesh Icy doubts assailed hiure out of the past was leading him to freedole this bewitched uide through blackness that loo shapes of horror and lunacy that cringed frolow of the Heart

Then the bronze dooras before hi across the desert, and saw the stars, and the starlit desert across which streareat black shadow of the pyramid Thothmekri pointed silently into the desert, and then turned and stalked soundlessly back in the darkness Conan stared after that silent figure that receded into the blackness on soundless, inexorable feet as one that moves to a known and inevitable doo sleep

With a curse the Cimmerian leaped from the doorway and fled into the desert as if pursued by demons He did not look back toward the pyra dimly across the sands He headed southward toward the coast, and he ran as a overnable panic The violent exertion shook his brain free of black cobwebs; the clean desert wind blew the nighted to a wild tide of exultation before the desert gave way to a tangle of swa before hih the undergrowth, hip-deep in theinto the deep water, heedless of sharks or crocodiles, and swa up the chain on to the deck, dripping and exultant, before the watch saw hi aside the spear the startled lookout thrust at his breast 'Heave up the anchor! Lay to the doors!

Give that fisherold and put hi, and before sunrise we ara!'

He whirled about his head the great jehich threw off splashes of light that spotted the deck with golden fire

20

Out of the Dust Shall Acheron Arise

Winter had passed fro out on the lirass smiled to the touch of the warm southern breezes But many a field lay idle and empty, many a charred heap of ashes marked the spot where proud villas or prosperous towns had stood

Wolves prowled openly along the grass-grown highways, and bands of gaunt, h the forests Only in Tarantia was feasting and wealth and pageantry

Valerius ruled like one touched with madness Even many of the barons who had welcoatherers crushed rich and poor alike; the wealth of a looted kingdom poured into Tarantia, which becaarrison of conquerors in a conquered land Its merchants waxed rich, but it was a precarious prosperity; for none knehen he e, and his property confiscated, hiht to the bloody block

Valerius made no attempt to conciliate his subjects He maintained himself by means of the Nemedian soldiery and by desperate mercenaries

He knew himself to be a puppet of Amalric He knew that he ruled only on the sufferance of the Nemedian He knew that he could never hope to unite Aquilonia under his rule and cast off the yoke of his masters, for the outland provinces would resist him to the last drop of blood And for that matter the Nemedians would cast him frodoall of defeated pride corroded his soul, and he threw hin of debauchery, as one who lives froht or care for tomorrow