Part 26 (1/2)

And Valerius intended to ruin the country so utterly that not even Amalric's wealth could ever rebuild it He hated the baron quite as much as he hated the Aquilonians, and hoped only to live to see the day when Aquilonia lay in utter ruin, and Tarascus and Amalric were locked in hopeless civil war that would as completely destroy Nemedia

He believed that the conquest of the still defiant provinces of Gunderland and Poitain and the BossonianHe would then have served Amalric's purpose, and could be discarded So he delayed the conquest of these provinces, confining his activities to objectless raids and forays, es for action with all sorts of plausible objections and postponements

His life was a series of feasts and wild debauches He filled his palace with the fairest girls of the kingdo He blasphemed the Gods and sprawled drunken on the floor of the banquet hall wearing the golden crown, and staining his royal purple robes with the wine he spilled In gusts of blood-lust he festooned the gallows in the lutted the axes of the headsh the land pillaging and burning Driven to madness, the land was in a constant upheaval of frantic revolt, savagely suppressed Valerius plundered and raped and looted and destroyed until even Ado that such was his fixed determination

But while in both Aquilonia and Ne, in Nemedia men talked much of Xaltotun, the masked one Yet fe him on the streets of Belverus Men said he spentremnants of an old race: dark, silent folk who claido hills, of fires glowing in the darkness, and strange chantings borne on the winds, chantings and rituals forgotten centuries ago except as es whose inhabitants differed strangely from the people of the valleys

The reason for these conclaves none knew, unless it was Orastes, who frequently accoard shadoas growing

But in the full flood of spring a sudden whisper passed over the sinking kingdoer life It ca men sunk in the apathy of despair Yet how it first carim old wo in the wind, and a great gray wolf following her like a dog Others whispered of the priests of Asura who stole like furtive phantoms from Gunderland to the es of the Bossonians

However the word ca Ne parties were cut to pieces; the as up in ar, a fierce resolution and inspired wrath rather than the frantic despair that hadrevolts It was not only the co defiance at the governors of the provinces Bands of Bossonians were seen es of the andines and steel caps, with longbows in their hands Fronation of dissolution and ruin the realerous So Amalric sent in haste for Tarascus, who came with an ars and A They had not sent for Xaltotun, immersed in his cryptic studies in the Nemedian hills Not since that bloody day in the valley of the Valkia had they called upon hi but little with theues

Nor had they sent for Orastes, but he came, and he hite as spuold-dos held conclave and they beheld in auessed the mind of Orastes could hold

'You are weary, Orastes,' said Amalric 'Sit upon this divan and I will have a slave fetch you wine You have ridden hard-'

Orastes waved aside the invitation

'I have killed three horses on the road from Belverus I cannot drink wine, I cannot rest, until I have said what I have to say'

He paced back and forth as if so before his wondering companions:

'When we e a dead h the consequences of ta in the black dust of the past The fault is etting what aht himself have And we have loosed a demon upon the earth, a fiend inexplicable to common humanity I have plumbed deep in evil, but there is a lio My ancestors were clean men, without any demoniacal taint; it is only I who have sunk into the pits, and I can sin only to the extent of my personal individuality But behind Xaltotun lie a thousand centuries of black ic and diabolism, an ancient tradition of evil He is beyond our conception not only because he is a wizard himself, but also because he is the son of a race of wizards

'I have seen things that have blastedhills I have watched Xaltotun commune with the souls of the daotten Acheron I have seen the accursed descendants of that accursed empire worshi+p him and hail him as their arch-priest I have seen what he plots - and I tell you it is no less than the restoration of the ancient, black, grisly kingdom of Acheron!'

'What do you h survivals to make an empire Not even Xaltotun can reshape the dust of three thousand years'

'You know little of his black powers,' answered Orastes grimly 'I have seen the very hills take on an alien and ancient aspect under the spell of his incantations I have glimpsed, like shadows behind the realities, the dim shapes and outlines of valleys, forests, mountains and lakes that are not as they are today, but as they were in that dili like figures of mist in the dusk

'And in the last conclave to which I acco of his sorcery came to me at last, while the drums beat and the beast-like worshi+ppers hoith their heads in the dust I tell you he would restore Acheron by his antic blood-sacrifice such as the world has never seen He would enslave the world, and with a deluge of blood wash away the present and restore the past'

'You are ard stare upon him 'Can any man see what I have seen and remain wholly sane? Yet I speak the truth He plots the return of Acheron, with its towers and wizards and kings and horrors, as it was in the long ago The descendants of Acheron will serve him as a nucleus upon which to build, but it is the blood and the bodies of the people of the world today that will furnish theI cannot tell you how My own brain reels when I try to understand But I have seen! Acheron will be Acheron again, and even the hills, the forests and the rivers will resume their ancient aspect Why not? If I, withto life a reatest wizard of the world bring back to life a kingdom dead three thousand years? Out of the dust shall Acheron arise at his bidding'

'How can art him?' asked Tarascus, impressed