Part 3 (1/2)
For centuries, now,” Enosh continued, ”this land has been transformed into a dead and sterile waste. Our young go to slake the dark thirst of the G.o.ddess, as do the beasts of our flocks. She feeds daily. Each day she chooses a victim, and each day they dwindle and lessen. When she attacks one victim incessantly, day after day, he may last but a few days or he may linger half a moon. The strongest and bravest endure for as many as thirty days before she exhausts their store of life force and must begin on the next.”
Conan fondled the hilt of his sword. ”Crom and Mitra, man, why have you not slain this thing?”
The old man wearily shook his head. ”She is invulnerable, unkillable,”
he said softly. ”Her flesh is composed of matter drawn to her and held together by the G.o.ddess's unconquerable will. An arrow or a sword could but wound that flesh: it is a trifling matter for her to repair the injury. And the life force she drinks from others, leaving them dry husks, gives her a terrible store of inner strength from which to remold her flesh anew.”
”b.u.m the thing,” Conan growled. ”Burn the palace down about her head, or cut her into little pieces for the flames of a bonfire to devour!”
”No. She s.h.i.+elds herself with dark powers of h.e.l.lish magic. Her weapon transfixes into paralysis all she looks upon. As many as a hundred warriors have crept into the J Black Temple, determined to end this grim tyranny. Naught was left of them but a living forest of motionless men, who served in turn as human banquets for the insatiable monster.”
Conan stirred restlessly. 'Tis a wonder that any of you still dwell in this accursed land!” he rumbled. ”How has this d.a.m.nable leech not drained every last human being in this valley dry long since? And why have you not bundled your belongings and fled from this demon-haunted place?”
”In truth, very few of us are left; she consumes us and our beasts faster than their natural increase can make up the loss. For ages, the demoness sated her l.u.s.t with the minute life force of growing green things, sparing the people. When the land became a waste, she fed first upon our flocks and then from our slaves and finally from the Akhlatim themselves. Soon we shall be gone, and Akhlat will be one vast city of death. Nor can we leave the land, for the power of the G.o.ddess holds us within narrow bounds, beyond which we cannot stray.”
Conan shook his head, his unshorn mane brus.h.i.+ng his bare, bronzed shoulders. ”It is a tragic tale you tell, old man. But why do you repeat it to me?”
”Because of an ancient prophecy,” said Enosh gently, picking up the worn and wrinkled scroll from the tabouret.
”What prophecy?”
Enosh partly unrolled the scroll and pointed to lines of writing of a form so old that Conan could not read it, although he could manage the written Shemitish of his own time. ”That in the fullness of time,” said Enosh, ”when our end was near, the Unknown Cods, whom our ancestors turned away from to wors.h.i.+p the demoness, would relent of their wrath and send a liberator, who should overthrow the G.o.ddess and destroy her evil power. You, Conan of Cimmeria, are that savior...”
7. Hall of the Living Dead.
For days and nights, Vardanes lay in a dank dungeon cell beneath the Black Temple of Akhlat. He yelled and pleaded and wept and cursed and prayed, but the dull-eyed, cold-faced, bronze-helmed guardsmen paid him no heed, save to tend to his bodily needs. They would not answer his questions. Neither would they submit to bribery, which much astonished him. A typical Zamorian, Vardanes could hardly conceive of men who did not l.u.s.t for wealth, yet these strange men with their antique speech and old-fas.h.i.+oned armor were so little covetous of the silver he had rung from the Turanians in payment for his betrayal that they even let his coin-filled saddle bags lie undisturbed in a comer of his cell.
They tended him well, however, bathing his haggard body and soothing his blisters with salves. And they fed him sumptuously with fine roast fowl, rich fruits, and sweetmeats. They even gave him wine. Having known other gaols in his time, Vardanes realized how extraordinary this was. Could, they, he wondered uneasily, be fattening him for slaughter?
Then, one day, guards came to his cell and brought him forth. He a.s.sumed he was at last to appear before some magistrate to answer whatever absurd charges his accusers might make. Confidence welled up within him. Never had he known a magistrate whose mercy could not be purchased with the silver in those fat saddle bags!
But, instead of to a judge or suffete, he was led by dark and winding ways before a mighty door of greened bronze, which loomed in front of him like the gate of h.e.l.l itself. Triply locked and barred was this portal, and strong enough to withstand an army. With nervous hands and taut faces, the warriors unfastened the great door and thrust Vardanes within.
As the door clanged shut behind him, the Zamorian found himself in a magnificent hall of polished marble. It was drowned in deep, purple gloom and thick with dust On every hand lay tokens of unrepaired decay, of untended neglect He went forward curiously.
Was this a great throne room, or the transept of some colossal temple?
It was hard to say. The most peculiar thing about the vast, shadowy hall, other than the neglect from which it had evidently long suffered, was the statuary that stood about its floor in cl.u.s.ters. A host of puzzling questions rose within Vardanes' troubled brain.
The first mystery was the substance of the statues. Whereas the hall itself was builded of sleek marble, the statues were made of some dull, lifeless, porous gray stone that he could not identify. Whatever the stuff was, it was singularly unattractive. It looked like dead wood ash, though hard as dry stone to the touch.
The second mystery was the amazing artistry of the unknown sculptor, whose gifted hands had wrought these marvels of art They were lifelike and detailed to an incredible degree: every fold of garment or drapery hung like real cloth; every tiny strand of hair was visible. This astonis.h.i.+ng fidelity was carried even to the postures. No heroic groupings, no monumental majesty was visible in these graven images of dull-gray, plasterlike material. They stood in lifelike poses, by the score and the hundred. They were scattered here and there with no regard for order. They were carved in the likeness of warriors and n.o.bles, youths and maidens, doddering grandsires and senile hags, blooming children and babes in arms.
The one disquieting feature held in common by all was that each figure bore on its stony features an expression of unendurable terror.
Before long, Vardanes heard a faint sound from the depths of this dark place. Like the sound of many voices it was, yet so faint that he could make out no words. A weird diapason whispered through this forest of statues. As Vardanes drew nearer, he could distinguish the strains of sound that made up the whole: slow, heart-rending sobs, faint, agonized moans; the blurred babble of prayers; croaking laughter; monotonous curses. These sounds seemed to come from half a hundred throats, but the Zamorian could see no source for them. Although he peered about, he could see naught in all this place but himself and the thousands of statues.
Sweat trickled down his forehead and his lean cheeks. A nameless fear arose within him. He wished from the depths of his faithless heart that he were a thousand leagues from this accursed temple, where voices of invisible beings moaned, sobbed, babbled, and laughed hideously.
Then he saw the golden throne. It stood in the midst of the hall, towering above the heads of the statues. Vardanes' eyes fed hungrily on the l.u.s.ter of gold. He edged through the stony forest toward it.
Something was propped up on that rich throne-the shriveled mummy of some long-dead king? Withered hands were clasped over a sunken breast From throat to heel, the thin body was wrapped in dusty cerements. A thin mask of beaten gold, worked in the likeness of a woman of unearthly beauty, lay over the features.