Part 4 (2/2)

All halted to stare at hi sword, the police with their lifted bills, De to staunch the blood that jetted fro stuments of broken teeth - even Posthuh the bloodyout into the corridor and fell stiffly before thehter ofneck! Ha! ha! ha! Oh, a long, a cursed long neck!' And then with a frightful convulsion he stiffened and lay grinning vacantly at the shadowy ceiling

'He's dead!' whispered Dionus, awedly, forgetting his own hurt, and the barbarian who stood with his dripping sword so near hi 'He's not wounded - in Mitra's name what is in that chamber?'

Then horror swept over the for the outer door, jah like led up and blundered blindly after his fellows, squealing like a wounded pig and begging the the in their fear But he crawled after thee to face the unknown, but he was unnerved and wounded, and the sword that had struck hih, he limped after his companions Police, charioteer and watch into the street, where the ht, not waiting to ask why Conan stood in the great corridor alone, save for the corpses on the floor

The barbarian shi+fted his grip on his sword and strode into the cha with rich silken tapestries; silken cushi+ons and couches lay strewn about in careless profusion; and over a heavy gilded screen a face looked at the Cimmerian

Conan stared in wonder at the cold classic beauty of that countenance, whose like he had never seen a the sons of men Neither weakness nor mercy nor cruelty nor kindness, nor any other huht have been the marble mask of a God, carved by a master hand, except for the une, such as the Ciht fleetingly of the marble perfection of the body which the screen concealed - it ht, since the face was so inhumanly beautiful But he could see only the God-like face, the finely molded head which swayed curiously frole word in a rich vibrant tone that was like the golden chile-lost teotten before the kingdoms of man arose, but Conan knew that it meant, 'Come!'

And the Ci slash of his sword The beautiful head rolled from the top of the screen in a jet of dark blood and fell at his feet, and he gave back, fearing to touch it Then his skin crawled, for the screen shook and heaved with the convulsions of so behind Conan had seen and heardmake such sounds in the death-throes There was a thrashi+ng, floundering noise, as if a great cable were being lashed violently about

At last the erly behind the screen Then the full horror of it all rushed over the Ciht until the spires of Nuht of Set was like a nightmare, and the children of Set who once ruled the earth and who now sleep in their nighted caverns far below the black pyrailded screen there had been no huantic serpent

ROGUES IN THE HOUSE

'One fled, one dead, one sleeping in a golden bed'

Old Rime At a court festival, Nabonidus, the Red Priest, as the real ruler of the city, touched Murilo, the young aristocrat, courteously on the araze, and to wonder at the hiddentherein No words passed between theold cask The young noble without reason, excused himself at the first opportunity and returned hastily to his chamber There he opened the cask and found within a hunized by a peculiar scar upon it He broke into a profuse sweat, and was no longer in doubt about the lance

But Murilo, for all his scented black curls and foppish apparel, was no weakling to bend his neck to the knife without a struggle He did not knohether Nabonidus was o into voluntary exile, but the fact that he was still alive and at liberty proved that he was to be given at least a few hours, probably for meditation But he needed no meditation for decision; what he needed was a tool And Fate furnished that tool, working a the dives and brothels of the squalid quarters even while the young nobleman shi+vered and pondered in the part of the city occupied by the purple-towered marble and ivory palaces of the aristocracy

There was a priest of Anu whose tee of the slum district, was the scene of more than devotions The priest was fat and full-fed, and he was at once a fence for stolen articles and a spy for the police He worked a thriving trade both ways, because the district on which he bordered was The Maze, a tangle ofalleys and sordid dens, frequented by the boldest thieves in the kingdo above all were a Gunderman deserter from the mercenaries and a barbaric Cimmerian Because of the priest of Aed in thein devious ways of the priest's treachery, he entered the teht, and cut off the priest's head There followed a great turmoil in the city, but search for the killer proved fruitless until his punk betrayed hiuard and his squad to the hidden cha to stupefied but ferocious life when they seized hih his assailants and would have escaped, but for the liquor that still clouded his senses Bewildered and half blinded, he ht, and dashed his head against the stone wall so terrifically that he knocked hieon in the city, shackled to the ith chains not even his barbaric thews could break

To this cell came Murilo, masked and wrapped in a wide black cloak The Ci hihts, and regarded hieon, with his limbs loaded with chains, the prihty body and thick-rizzly with the quickness of a panther Under his tangled black ery

'Would you like to live?' asked Murilo The barbarian grunted, new interest glinting in his eyes

'If I arrange for your escape will you do a favor for me?' the aristocrat asked

The Ciaze answered for him

'I want you to kill a man for me'

'Whom?'

Murilo's voice sank to a whisper 'Nabonidus, the king's priest!'

The Cin of surprise or perturbation He had none of the fear or reverence for authority that civilization instills in ar, it was all one to him Nor did he ask why Murilo had come to him, when the quarters were full of cutthroats outside prisons

'When am I to escape?' he deuard in this part of the dungeon at night He can be bribed; he has been bribed See, here are the keys to your chains I'll reuard, Athicus, will unlock the door to your cell You will bind him with strips torn from your tunic; so when he is found, the authorities will think you were rescued from the outside, and will not suspect him Go at once to the house of the Red Priest, and kill hiive you a pouch of gold and a horse With those you can escape from the city and flee the country'

'Take off these cursed chains now,' de me food By Crom, I have lived on h to fa'

'It shall be done; but remember - you are not to escape until I have had time to reach my house'

Freed of his chains, the barbarian stood up and stretched his heavy arain felt that if any man in the world could accomplish the task he had set, this Cimmerian could With a few repeated instructions he left the prison, first directing Athicus to take a platter of beef and ale in to the prisoner He knew he could trust the guard, not only because of the money he had paid, but also because of certain infor the man

When he returned to his chamber, Murilo was in full control of his fears Nabonidus would strike through the king - of that he was certain And since the royal guards at his door, it was as certain that the priest had said nothing to the king, so far Tomorroould speak, beyond a doubt - if he lived to see tomorrow

Murilo believed the Cimmerian would keep faith with him Whether the man would be able to carry out his purpose remained to be seen Men had attempted to assassinate the Red Priest before, and they had died in hideous and nameless ways But they had been products of the cities ofthe wolfish instincts of the barbarian The instant that Murilo, turning the gold cask with its severed ear in his hands, had learned through his secret channels that the Cimmerian had been captured, he had seen a solution of his probleain, he drank a toast to the ht And while he was drinking, one of his spies brought him the news that Athicus had been arrested and thrown into prison The Cimmerian had not escaped

Murilo felt his blood turn to ice again He could see in this twist of fate only the sinister hand of Nabonidus, and an eery obsession began to grow on him that the Red Priest was more than human - a sorcerer who read the s on which they danced like puppets With despair ca a sword beneath his black cloak, he left his house by a hidden way, and hurried through the deserted streets It was just atblackly a estates

The as high but not iotiate Nabonidus did not put his trust in mere barriers of stone It as inside the wall that was to be feared What these things were Murilo did not know precisely He knew there was at least a huge savage dog that roaardens and had on occasion torn an intruder to pieces as a hound rends a rabbit What else there ht be he did not care to conjecture Men who had been allowed to enter the house on brief, legiti rich furnishi+ngs, yet sily small nu been visible - a tall silent man called Joka So about in the recesses of the house, but this person no one had ever seen The greatest mystery of that ue and grasp on international politics had dos he worked

Murilo scaled the wall and dropped down into the gardens, which were expanses of shadow, darkened by cluht shone in the s of the house which loo nobleh the shrubs Mo, and to see its giant body hurtle through the shadows He doubted the effectiveness of his sword against such an attack, but he did not hesitate As well die beneath the fangs of a beast as the ax of the heads Bending close in the diround It was the dog that guarded the gardens, and it was dead Its neck was broken and it bore what sees Murilo felt that no hu had done this The beast had lared nervously at the crypticof his shoulders, he approached the silent house

The first door he tried proved to be unlocked He entered warily, sword in hand, and found hiht that gleas at the other end Co the hall and halted to peer through the hangings He looked into a lighted room, over the s of which velvet curtains were drawn so closely as to allow no beah The room was erisly occupant, nevertheless In the s that told of a fearful struggle, lay the body of a man The form lay on its belly, but the head isted about so that the chin rested behind a shoulder The features, contorted into an awful grin, seemed to leer at the horrified nobleht, Murilo's resolution wavered He cast an uncertain glance back the way he had come Then the memory of the headsman's block and ax steeled hi horror sprawled in its h he had never seen the man before, he knew from former descriptions that it was Joka, Nabonidus's saturnine servant

He peered through a curtained door into a broad circular chaallery halfway between the polished floor and the lofty ceiling This cha In the any table, loaded with vessels of wine and rich viands And Murilo stiffened In a great chair whose broad back was toward hili on the arm of the chair; the head, clad in the faoas bent forward as if in meditation Just so had Murilo seen Nabonidus sit a hundred ti of his own heart, the young nobleman stole across the chamber, sword extended, his whole frame poised for the thrust His prey did not move, nor seem to hear his cautious advance Was the Red Priest asleep, or was it a corpse which slule stride separated Murilo from his enemy, when suddenly the man in the chair rose and faced him

The blood went suddenly fro on the polished floor A terrible cry broke fro body Then once ned over the house of the Red Priest

Shortly after Murilo left the dungeon where Conan the Ciht the prisoner a platter of food which included, ae joint of beef and a tankard of ale Conan fell to voraciously, and Athicus made a final round of the cells, to see that all was in order, and that none should witness the pretended prison-break It hile he was so occupied that a squad of guardsmen marched into the prison and placed him under arrest Murilo had been mistaken when he assumed this arrest denoted discovery of Conan's planned escape It was another s with the underworld, and one of his past sins had caught up with him

Another jailer took his place, a stolid, dependable creature whom no amount of bribery could have shaken froinative, but he had an exalted idea of the importance of his job

After Athicus had been istrate, this jailer made the rounds of the cells as a matter of routine As he passed that of Conan, his sense of propriety was shocked and outraged to see the prisoner free of his chains, and in the act of gnawing the last shreds of e beef-bone The jailer was so upset that he uards from other parts of the prison It was his first mistake in the line of duty, and his last Conan brained him with the beef-bone, took his poniard and his keys, and uard was on duty there at night The Cimmerian passed himself outside the walls by ed into the outer air, as free as if Murilo's plan had been successful

In the shadows of the prison walls, Conan paused to decide his next course of action It occurred to hih his own actions, he owed nothing to Murilo; yet it had been the young nobleman who had removed his chains and had the food sent to him, without either of which his escape would have been impossible Conan decided that he was indebted to Murilo, and, since he was a ations eventually, he deter aristocrat But first he had some business of his own to attend to

He discarded his ragged tunic and ht naked but for a loin-cloth As he went he fingered the poniard he had captured - a ed blade nineteen inches long He slunk along alleys and shadowed plazas until he ca its labyrinthian ways he ith the certainty of familiarity It was indeed a maze of black alleys and enclosed courts and devious ways; of furtive sounds, and stenches There was no paving on the streets; led in an unsavory mess Seere unknown; refuse was du heaps and puddles Unless aand plunge waist-deep into nauseous pools Nor was it unco with its throat cut or its head knocked in, in the ood reason

Conan reached his destination without being seen, just as one he wished fervently toit As the Ciirl who had sold hi leave of her new lover in a cha, her door closed behind hiht of stairs, intent on his own meditations, which, like those of most of the denizens of The Maze, had to do with the unlawful acquirement of property Part-way down the stairs, he halted suddenly, his hair standing up A vague bulk crouched in the darkness before hi beast A beast-like snarl was the last thing he heard in life; as the h his belly He gave one gasping cry, and slumped down limply on the stairway

The barbarian loo in the gloom He knew the sound was heard, but the people in The Maze were careful to attend to their own business A death-cry on darkened stairs was nothing unusual Later, soate, but only after a reasonable lapse of time

Conan went up the stairs and halted at the door he kneell of old It was fastened within, but his blade passed between the door and the ja the door after hiirl who had betrayed him to le police