Part 23 (2/2)

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He hesitated, then made up his mind; after all, he was as much in her power as she was in his

”Walk beside rasp from her throat to her wrist ”But ith care If youcorridor, down and down, until there were no roped his way in darkness, aware less by sight than by feel and sense of the woman at his side Once when he spoke to her, she turned her head toward hiolden fire in the dark Diue monstrous suspicions haunted his h a labyrinthine maze of black corridors that confused even his primitive sense of direction Hehimself to be led into that black abode of ain he felt life and er burning impatiently in the blackness Unless his ears deceived hi noise that ceased and receded at a irl

She led hihted by a curious seven-branched candelabrum in which black candles burned weirdly He knew they were far below the earth The cha of polished black ians; there was a couch of ebony, covered with black velvet, and on a black stone dais lay a carvenat the various black arches which opened into the cha herself on the couch with feline suppleness, she intertwined her fingers behind her sleek head and regarded hi lashes

”Well?” he de? Where's Thutothmes?”

”There is no haste,” she answered lazily ”What is an hour or a day, or a year, or a century, for that matter? Take off your runt of annoyance Conan dragged off the bulky headpiece, and the girl nodded as if in approval as she scanned his dark scarred face and blazing eyes

”There is strength in you great strength; you could strangle a bullock”

HeWith his hand on his hilt he peered into the glooht me into a trap,” he said, ”you won't live to enjoy your handiwork Are you 205

going to get off that couch and do as you promised, or do I have to ”

His voice trailed away He was staring at the mummy-case, on which the countenance of the occupant was carved in ivory with the startling vividness of a forgotten art There was a disquieting fa of a shock he realized what it was; there was a startling rese on the ebon couch She ht have been the model from which it was carved, but he knew the portrait was at least centuries old Archaic hieroglyphics were scrawled across the lacquered lid, and, seeking back into his , picked up here and there as incidentals of an adventurous life, he spelled them out, and said aloud: ”Akivasha!”

”You have heard of Princess Akivasha?” inquired the girl on the couch

”Who hasn't?” he grunted The name of that ancient, evil, beautiful princess still lived the world over in song and legend, though ten thousand years had rolled their cycles since the daughter of Tuthamon had reveled in purple feasts amid the black halls of ancient Luxur

”Her only sin was that she loved life and all the irl ”To win life she courted death She could not bear to think of growing old and shriveled and worn, and dying at last as hags die She wooed Darkness like a lover and his gift was life life that, not being life as row old and fade She went into the shadows to cheat age and death ”

Conan glared at her with eyes that were suddenly burning slits And he wheeled and tore the lid frohing and the sound froze the blood in his veins He whirled back to her, the short hairs on his neck bristling

”You are Akivasha!” he grated

She laughed and shook back her burnished locks, spread her arms sensuously

”I arew old! Who fools say was lifted from the earth by the Gods, in the full bloom of her youth and beauty, to queen it for ever in some celestial clime! Nay, it is in the shadows that o I died to live for ever! Givelithely she ca her ar down into her upturned, beautiful countenance he are of a fearful fascination and an icy fear

”Love me!” she whispered, her head thrown back, eyes closed and lips parted ”Give me of 206

your blood to renewlife! I will make you, too, ies, all the secrets that have lasted out the eons in the blackness beneath these dark te of that shadowy horde which revel aht veils the desert and bats flit across the irls dragged screah the portals of death I desire a man Love ainst hisat the base of his throat With a curse he tore her away and flung her sprawling across the couch

”da from a tiny wound in his throat

She reared up on the couch like a serpent poised to strike, all the golden fires of hell blazing in her wide eyes Her lips drew back, revealing white pointed teeth

”Fool!” she shrieked ”Do you think to escape ht you far below the temple You can never find your way out alone You can never cut your way through those which guard the tunnels But for o have taken you into their bellies Fool, I shall yet drink your blood!”

”Keep away frorunted, his flesh crawling with revulsion

”You may be immortal, but steel will dish which he had entered, the light went out suddenly All the candles were extinguished at once, though he did not kno; for Akivasha had not touched thely behind him, poison-sweet as the viols of hell, and he sweated as he groped in the darkness for the arch in a near-panic His fingers encountered an opening and he plunged through it Whether it was the arch through which he had entered he did not know, nor did he very et out of the haunted chamber which had housed that beautiful, hideous, undead fiend for so h those black, winding tunnels were a sweating nights and glidings, and once the echo of that sweet, hellish laughter he had heard in the chamber of Akivasha He slashed ferociously at sounds and ined he heard in the darkness near hi tenuous substance thatthat he was being played with, lured deeper and deeper into ulti

And through his fear ran the sickening revulsion of his discovery The legend of Akivasha was so old, and a the evil tales told of her ran a thread of beauty and idealis 207

youth To so many dreamers and poets and lovers she was not alone the evil princess of Stygian legend, but the sy for ever in some far realm of the Gods And this was the hideous reality This foul perversion was the truth of that everlasting life Through his physical revulsion ran the sense of a shattered dreaold proved slime and cosmic filth A wave of futility swept over him, a dim fear of the falseness of all men's dreams and idolatries

And now he knew that his ears were not playing hi in on his that were never made by human feet; no, nor by the feet of any normal animal The underworld had its bestial life too, perhaps They were behind hi, and slowly backed away Then the sounds ceased, even before he turned his head and saw, soht

XIX

IN THE HALL OF THE DEAD

Conan ht he had seen, his ear cocked over his shoulder, but there was no further sound of pursuit, though he felt the darkness pregnant with sentient life

The gloas not stationary; itThen he saw the source

The tunnel he was traversing crossed another, wider corridor so this latter tunnel filed a bizarre procession four tall, gaunton staffs The leader held a torch above his head a torch that burned with a curious steady glow Like phantoe of vision and vanished, with only a fading glow to tell of their passing Their appearance was indescribably eldritch They were not Stygians, not like anything Conan had ever seen He doubted if they were even hu the haunted tunnels

But his position could be no more desperate than it was Before the inhu advance at the fading of the distant illued into the other tunnel and saw, far down it, slowing sphere He stole noiselessly after theainst the wall as he saw the on some matter They turned as if to retrace their steps, and he slipped into the nearest archway Groping in the darkness to which he had becoh it, he discovered that the tunnel did not run straight, but meandered, and he fell back beyond the first turn, so that the light of the strangers should not fall on him as they passed

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But as he stood there, he are of a low hum of sound from so down the corridor in that direction, he confirinal intention of following the ghoulish travelers to whatever destination ht be theirs, he set out in the direction of the voices

Presently he saw a glint of light ahead of hi into the corridor frolow at the other end On his left a narrow stone stair went upward, and instinctive caution prompted him to turn andfrom beyond that flame-filled arch

The sounds fell away beneath hih a low arched door into a vast open space gloith a weird radiance