Part 12 (1/2)
Conan's eyes narrowed as he stared at the man in silence
”I sensed a brain behind all this,” he ht it was Amalric's Are A on your string? Who are you?”
”What does it matter? If I told you, you would not believe ht set you back on the throne of Aquilonia?”
Conan's eyes burned on him like a wolf
”What's your price?”
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”Obedience to me”
”Go to hell with your offer!” snarled Conan ”I'urehead I won my croith my sword Besides, it's beyond your power to buy and sell the throne of Aquilonia at your will
The kingdom's not conquered; one battle doesn't decide a war”
”You war against more than swords,” answered Xaltotun ”Was it a ht? Nay, it was a child of the dark, a waif of outer space, whose fingers were afire with the frozen coldness of the black gulfs, which froze the blood in your veins and the marrow of your thews Coldness so cold it burned your flesh like white-hot iron!
”Was it chance that led the hts into the defile?
chance that brought the cliffs crashi+ng down upon the a chill along his spine Wizards and sorcerers abounded in his barbaric y, and any fool could tell that this was no co about him that set him apart an alien aura of Time and space, a sense of tremendous and sinister antiquity But his stubborn spirit refused to flinch
”The fall of the cliffs was chance,” he e into the defile hat any man would have done”
”Not so You would not have led a charge into it You would have suspected a trap You would never have crossed the river in the first place, until you were sure the Neestions would not have invaded your mind, even in the madness of battle, to make you mad, and rush blindly into the trap laid for you, as it did the lesser man who masqueraded as you”
”Then if this was all planned,” Conan grunted skeptically, ”all a plot to trap my host, why did not the 'child of darkness' kill me in my tent?”
”Because I wished to take you alive It took no wizardry to predict that Pallantides would send another man out in your harness I wanted you alive and unhurt You s There is a vital power about you greater than the craft and cunning of ht ely at the word, and Xaltotun, ignoring his fury, took a crystal globe from a near-by table and placed it before hi, but it hung motionless in midair, as solidly as if it rested on an iron pedestal Conan snorted at this bit of necromancy, but he was nevertheless ioes on in Aquilonia?” he asked
Conan did not reply, but the sudden rigidity of his form betrayed his interest
Xaltotun stared into the cloudy depths, and spoke: ”It is now the evening of the day after the battle of Valkia Last night the main body of the arhts harried the fleeing Aquilonians At dawn the host broke cah the mountains Prospero, with ten thousand Poitanians, wassurvivors in the early dawn He had pushed on all night, hoping to reach the field before the battle joined Unable to rally the remnants of the broken host, he fell back toward Tarantia Riding hard, replacing his wearied horses with steeds seized from the countryside, he approaches Tarantia
”I see his weary knights, their ar as they push their tired horses through the plain I see, also, the streets of Tarantia The city is in turmoil
Somehoord has reached the people of the defeat and the death of King Conan Theis dead, and there is none to lead theainst the Nemedians Giant shadows rush on Aquilonia from the east, and the sky is black with vultures”
Conan cursed deeply
”What are these but words? The raggedest beggar in the street lass ball, then you're a liar as well as a knave, of which last there's no doubt! Prospero will hold Tarantia, and the barons will rally to hido back to their kennels What are fifty thousand Nemedians? Aquilonia will s theain It's not Aquilonia which was conquered at Valkia; it was only Conan”
”Aquilonia is doomed,” answered Xaltotun, unmoved ”Lance and ax and torch shall conquer her; or if they fail, powers froainst her As the cliffs fell at Valkia, so shall walled cities and mountains fall, if the need arise, and rivers roar from their channels to drohole provinces
”Better if steel and bowstring prevail without further aid frohty spells soht rock the universe”
”Fro?”at the man The Ci incredibly ancient, incredibly evil
Xaltotun lifted his head, as if listening to whispers across the void He seeotten his prisoner Then he shook his head ilanced impersonally at Conan
”What? Why, if I told you, you would not believe me But I a to destroy a walled city than it is to frahts in words a brainless barbarian can understand”
”If my hands were free,” opined Conan, ”I'd soon make a brainless corpse out of you”
”I do not doubt it, if I were fool enough to give you the opportunity,” answered Xaltotun, clapping his hands
His ed; there was impatience in his tone, and a certain nervousness in his h Conan did not think this attitude was in any way connected with himself
”Consider what I have told you, barbarian,” said Xaltotun ”You will have plenty of leisure I have not yet decided what I shall do with you It depends on circumstances yet unborn But let this be iame, it will be better to submit without resistance than to suffer s that roes entered Each was clad only in a silken breech-clout supported by a girdle, froestured i the ers twitched queerly Fro black dust, and placed it in a brazier which stood on a golden tripod at his elbow The crystal globe, which he seeotten, fell suddenly to the floor, as if its invisible support had been removed
Then the blacks had lifted Conan for so loaded with chains was he that he could not walk and carried hiold-bound teak door was closed, showed hi back in his throne-like chair, his arms folded, while a thin wisp of smoke curled up froia, that ancient and evil kingdom that lay far to the south, he had seen such black dust before It was the pollen of the black lotus, which creates death-like sleep and risly wizards of the Black Ring, which is the nadir of evil, voluntarily seek the scarlet nightmares of the black lotus, to revive their necro was a fable and a lie to hastly reality, and its grim votaries who practise their abohted dolanced back at the cryptic, gold-bound door, shuddering at what it hid
Whether it was day or night the king could not tell The palace of King Tarascus seehted place, that shunned natural illumination The spirit of darkness and shadow hovered over it, and that spirit, Conan felt, was e along a winding corridor so dihosts bearing a dead man, and down a stone stair that wound endlessly A torch in the hand of one cast the great defor the wall; it was like the descent into hell of a corpse borne by dusky demons
At last they reached the foot of the stair, and then they traversed a long straight corridor, with a blank wall on one hand pierced by an occasional arched doorith a stair leading up behind it, and on the other hand another wall showing heavy barred doors at regular intervals of a few feet
Halting before one of these doors, one of the blacks produced the key that hung at his girdle, and turned it in the lock Then, pushi+ng open the grille, they entered with their captive They were in a s, and in the opposite wall there was another grilled door What lay beyond that door Conan could not tell, but he did not believe it was another corridor The glih the bars, hinted at shadowy spaciousness and echoing depths
In one corner of the dungeon, near the door through which they had entered, a cluster of rusty chains hung fro set in the stone In these chains a skeleton dangled Conan glared at it with so the state of the bare bones, most of which were splintered and broken; the skull, which had fallen froe blow of tremendous force
Stolidly one of the blacks, not the one who had opened the door, re his key on the ed the mass of rusty metal and shattered bones over to one side Then they fastened Conan's chains to that ring, and the third black turned his key in the lock of the farther door, grunting when he had assured hiarded Conan cryptically, slit-eyed ebony giants, the torch striking highlights frolossy skin
He who held the key to the nearer door was -king! None but master and we know All palace sleep We keep secret You live and die here, maybe Like him!” He conte across the stone floor
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