Part 24 (1/2)

He was standing on a shadowy gallery from which he looked down into a broad dim-lit hall of colossal proportions It was a hall of the dead, which few ever see but the silent priests of Stygia Along the black walls rose tier above tier of carven, painted sarcophagi Each stood in a niche in the dusky stone, and the tiers loom above

Thousands of carven roup in the nificant by that vast array of the dead

Of this group ten were priests, and though they had discarded their masks Conan knew they were the priests he had accompanied to the pyramid They stood before a tall, hawk-facedswathings And the altar see fire which pulsed and shi+olden flalow ereat red jehich lay upon the altar, and in the reflection of which the faces of the priests looked ashy and corpse- like As he looked, Conan felt the pressure of all the weary leagues and the weary nights and days of his long quest, and he tre those silent priests, clear his ith eripped himself with iron control, and crouched down in the shadow of the stone balustrade A glance showed hiing the wall and half hidden in the shadows He glared into the di other priests or votaries, but saw only the group about the altar

In that great emptiness the voice of the hostly: ”And so the word caht hispered it, the ravens croaked of it as they flew, and the grim bats told it to the owls and the serpents that lurk in hoary ruins

Werewolf and vaht The sleeping Night of the World stirred and shook its heavyof druhtened ain into the world to fulfill its cryptic destiny

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”Ask ht, heard the word before Thoth-Amon who calls himself prince of all wizards There are secrets not meet for such ears even as yours, and Thoth-A

”I knew, and I went to net which drewon a river of hureatest when there is blood on the hands that grasp it, when it is wrested by slaughter frodoms totter, and the forces of nature are put in turmoil

”And here I stand, the master of the Heart, and have summoned you to come secretly, who are faithful to ht you shall witness the breaking of Thoth-Amon's chains which enslave us, and the birth of empire

”Who am I, even I, Thutothmes, to knohat powers lurk and dreaotten for three thousand years But I shall learn These shall tell me!”

He waved his hand toward the silent shapes that lined the hall

”See how they sleep, staring through their carven enerals, priests, wizards, the dynasties and the nobility of Stygia for ten thousand years! The touch of the Heart will awaken the the Heart throbbed and pulsed in ancient Stygia Here was its home in the centuries before it journeyed to Acheron The ancients knew its full powers, and they will tell ic I restore them to life to labor for me

”I will rouse theotten wisdoe locked in those withered skulls By the lore of the dead we shall enslave the living! Aye, kings and generals and wizards of eld shall be our helpers and our slaves Who shall stand before us?

”Look! This dried, shriveled thing on the altar was once Thotho He was an adept of the Black Ring He knew of the Heart He will tell us of its powers”

Lifting the great jewel, the speaker laid it on the withered breast of the an an incantation But the incantation was never finished With his hand lifted and his lips parted he froze, glaring past his acolytes, and they wheeled to stare in the direction in which he was looking

Through the black arch of a door four gaunt, black-robed shapes had filed into the great hall

Their faces were dim yellow ovals in the shadow of their hoods

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”Who are you?” ejaculated Thutother as the hiss of a cobra ”Are you mad, to invade the holy shrine of Set?”

The tallest of the strangers spoke, and his voice was toneless as a Khitan temple bell

”We follow Conan of Aquilonia”

”He is not here,” answered Thutothht hand with a curioushis talons

”You lie He is in this temple We tracked him froh ahis devious trail e becaain But first give us the Heart of Ahriman”

”Death is the portion ofnearer the speaker His priests closed in on cat-like feet, but the strangers did not appear to heed

”Who can look upon it without desire?” said the Khitan ”In Khitai we have heard of it It will give us power over the people which cast us out Glory and wonder dream in its crimson deeps

Give it to us, before we slay you”

A fierce cry rang out as a priest leaped with a flicker of steel Before he could strike, a scaly staff licked out and touched his breast, and he fell as a deaddown on a scene of blood and horror Curved knives flashed and crimsoned, snaky staffs licked in and out, and whenever they touched a man, that man screamed and died

At the first stroke Conan had bounded up and was racing down the stairs He caught only gli, locked in battle and strea blood; saw one Khitan, fairly hacked to pieces, yet still on his feet and dealing death, when Thutothmes smote him on the breast with his open eh naked steel had not been enough to destroy his uncanny vitality

By the tiht was all but over Three of the Khitans were down, slashed and cut to ribbons and diseians only Thutoth Khitan, his empty hand lifted like a weapon, and that hand was black as that of a negro But before he could strike, the staff in the tall Khitan's hand licked out, seeate itself as the yellow man thrust The point touched the bosoain the staff licked out, and Thutothmes reeled 211

and fell dead, his features blotted out in a rush of blackness that made the whole of him the same hue as his enchanted hand The Khitan turned toward the jewel that burned on the breast of the mummy, but Conan was before him

In a tense stillness the two faced each other, a down upon the of Aquilonia,” said the Khitan cal river, and over the h the hills of Argos and down the coast Not easily did we pick up your trail from Tarantia, for the priests of Asura are crafty

We lost it in Zingara, but we found your helht with the ghouls of the forests Al these labyrinths”

Conan reflected that he had been fortunate in returning from the vampire's chamber by another route than that by which he had been led to it Otherwise he would have run full into these yellow fiends instead of sighting them from afar as they smelled out his spoor like huift was theirs

The Khitan shook his head slightly, as if reading histrail ends here”

”Why have you hounded me?” demanded Conan, poised to er

”It was a debt to pay,” answered the Khitan ”To you who are about to die I will not withhold knowledge We were vassals of the king of Aquilonia, Valerius Long we served him, but of that service we are free now ation I shall return to Aquilonia with two hearts; for myself the Heart of Ahriman; for Valerius the heart of Conan A kiss of the staff that was cut fro Tree of Death ”

The staff licked out like the dart of a viper, but the slash of Conan's knife was quicker The staff fell in writhing halves, there was another flicker of the keen steel like a jet of lightning, and the head of the Khitan rolled to the floor

Conan wheeled and extended his hand toward the jewel then he shrank back, his hair bristling, his blood congealing icily

For no longer a withered brown thing lay on the altar The jewel shi+ ? Conan could not 212

decide The eyes were like dark lass under which shone inhu the jewel in his hand He towered beside the altar, dusky, naked, with a face like a carven ie Mutely he extended his hand toward Conan, with the jewel throbbing like a living heart within it Conan took it, with an eery sensation of receiving gifts from the hand of the dead He somehow realized that the proper incantations had not been made the conjurement had not been completed life had not been fully restored to this corpse

”Who are you?” demanded the Cimmerian

The answer ca of water from stalactites in subterranean caverns ”I was Thothmekri; I am dead”