Part 17 (2/2)
Hadrathus stood before them, his uncovered head bowed
”What is your wish, your Majesty?”
”Food, first,” he grunted, and the priest s with a silver wand
Scarcely had the ures caed silver platter of s dishes and crystal vessels This they set before Conan, bowing low, and the king wiped his hands on the damask, and smacked his lips with unconcealed relish
”Beware, your Majesty!” whispered Albiona ”These folk eat hudo but honest roast beef,” answered Conan ”Cory after the prison fare”
Thus advised, and with the example before her of one whose as the ultimate law to her, the countess coe lord tore into the usto as if he had not already eaten once that night
”You priests are shrewd, Hadrathus,” he said, with a great beef-bone in his hands and his n to regain dom”
Slowly Hadrathus shook his head, and Conan slaust of impatient wrath
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”Crom's devils! What ails thebut wag your idiotic heads when I speak of ousting these dogs?”
Hadrathus sighed and answered slowly: ”My lord, it is ill to say, and I fain would say otherwise But the freedom of Aquilonia is at an end Nay, the freedoe in the history of the world, and noe enter an age of horror and slavery, as it was long ago”
”What do youuneasily
Hadrathus dropped into a chair and rested his elbows on his thighs, staring at the floor
”It is not alone the rebellious lords of Aquilonia and the arainst you,” answered Hadrathus ”It is sorcery grisly black rim youth of the world An awful shape has risen out of the shades of the Past, and none can stand before it”
”What do you mean?” Conan repeated
”I speak of Xaltotun of Acheron, who died three thousand years ago, yet walks the earth today”
Conan was silent, while in his e of a bearded face of calain he was haunted by a sense of uneasy familiarity Acheron the sound of the word roused instinctive vibrations of memory and associations in his mind
”Acheron,” he repeated ”Xaltotun of Acheron man, are you mad? Acheron has been a myth for more centuries than I can remember I've often wondered if it ever existed at all”
”It was a black reality,” answered Hadrathus, ”an eotten It was finally overthrown by the Hyborian tribes of the west The wizards of Acheron practised foul necroht thedoreat as Xaltotun of Python”
”Then hoas he ever overthrown?” asked Conan skeptically
”By souarded was stolen and turned against him That source has been returned to hi the headsman's black cloak about her, stared fro the conversation Conan shook his head angrily
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”You are rowled ”If Xaltotun has been dead three thousand years, how can this ue who's taken the old one's name”
Hadrathus leaned to an ivory table and opened a s which glinted dully in the
”You have seen Xaltotun unveiled? Then look upon this It is a coin which was stamped in ancient Acheron, before its fall So pervaded with sorcery was that black eic”
Conan took it and scowled down at it There was no reat antiquity Conan had handled ood practical knowledge of thees orn and the inscription almost obliterated But the countenance stamped on one side was still clear-cut and distinct And Conan's breath sucked in between his clenched teeth It was not cool in the cha of his scalp, an icy contraction of his flesh The countenance was that of a bearded man, inscrutable, with a calm inhuman beauty
”By Crom! It's he!” muttered Conan He understood, now, the sense of faht of the bearded man had roused in him froo in a far land
With a shake of his shoulders he growled: ”The likeness is only a coincidence or if he's shrewd enough to assuh to assuht of that coin had shaken the foundations of his universe He felt that reality and stability were cru into an abyss of illusion and sorcery A wizard was understandable; but this was diabolism beyond sanity
”We cannot doubt that it is indeed Xaltotun of Python,” said Hadrathus ”He it ho shook down the cliffs at Valkia, by his spells that enthrall the elementals of the earth he it ho sent the creature of darkness into your tent before dawn”
Conan scowled at him ”How did you know that?”
”The followers of Asura have secret channels of knowledge That does notyour subjects in a vain atteain your crown?”
Conan rested his chin on his fist, and stared griroping bewildered in the mazes of the problem that confronted hiic to fight Xaltotun's ic?” he asked at 154
last
Hadrathus shook his head ”If there were, we of Asura would know of hiian serpent-worshi+p That is a lie Our ancestors came from Vendhya, beyond the Sea of Vilayet and the blue Himelian mountains We are sons of the East, not the South, and we have knowledge of all the wizards of the East, who are greater than the wizards of the West And not one of theht of Xaltotun”
”But he was conquered once,” persisted Conan
”Aye; a cosain in his hands, and he will see that it is not stolen again”
”And what is this damnable source?” demanded Conan irritably
”It is called the Heart of Ahriman When Acheron was overthrown, the priainst Xaltotun hid it in a haunted cavern and built a small temple over the cavern Thrice thereafter the tereater and more elaborately than before, but always on the site of the original shrine, though ot the reason therefor Memory of the hidden symbol faded from the minds of common men, and was preserved only in priestly books and esoteric volumes Whence it came no one knows Some say it is the veritable heart of a God, others that it is a star that fell froo
Until it was stolen, none had looked upon it for three thousand years
”When the ic of Xaltotun's acolyte, Altaro, they reh priest and an acolyte went down into the dark and terrible crypt below the temple into which no priest had descended for three thousand years In the ancient iron-bound volumes which speak of the Heart in their cryptic symbolism, it is also told of a creature of darkness left by the ancient priest to guard it
”Far down in a square cha off into immeasurable blackness, the priest and his acolytes found a black stone altar that glowed dimly with inexplicable radiance
”On that altar lay a curious gold vessel like a double-valved sea-shell which clung to the stone like a barnacle But it gaped open and eone While they stared in horror, the keeper of the crypt, the creature of darkness, cah priest so that he died But the acolyte fought off the being a uard the Heart and escaped up the long black narrow stairs carrying the dying priest, who, before he died, gasped out the news to his followers, bade them 155