Part 23 (1/2)

Meanwhile the unsuspecting kozak had plunged into the forest He went silently in his soft leather boots, his gaze sifting every shadow in eagerness to catch sight of the splendid tawny-haired beauty of whom he had dreaha by Fort Ghori He would have desired her even if she had displayed repugnance toward hilances had fired his blood, and with all the lawless violence which was his heritage he desired that white-skinned golden-haired woman of civilization

He had been on Xapur before Less than a o he had held a secret conclave here with a pirate crew He knew that he was approaching a point where he could see the ave the island its na theh struck dead

Ahead of hi that his reason told hireen wall, with towers rearing beyond the battlements

Conan stood paralyzed in the disruption of the faculties which deation of sanity He doubted neither his sight nor his reason, but soo only broken ruins had showed a the trees What human hands could rear such a mammoth pile as now met his eyes, in the feeeks which had elapsed? Besides, the buccaneers who roa on on such a stupendous scale, and would have infor, but it was so He was on Xapur and that fantastic heap of towering masonry was on Xapur, and all was madness and paradox; yet it was all true

He wheeled back through the jungle, down the carven stair and across the blue waters to the distant camp at thepanic even the thought of halting so near the inland sea was repugnant He would leave it behind him, would quit the armed camps and the steppes, and put a thousand miles between him and the blue mysterious East where the ht, by what diabolisuess

For an instant the future fate of kingdo in the balance It was a s that tipped the scales - ht his uneasy glance He leaned to it, his nostrils expanding, his nerves quivering to a subtle stimulant On that bit of torn cloth, so faint that it was less with his physical faculties than by soered the tantalizing perfume that he connected with the sweet firir's pavilion The fisherman had not lied, then; she was here! Then in the soil he saw a single track of a bare foot, long and slender, but a man's not a woman's, and sunk deeper than was natural The conclusion was obvious; thea burden, and what should it be but the girl the kozak was seeking?

He stood silently facing the dark towers that looh the trees, his eyes slits of blue bale-fire Desire for the yellow-haired woe at whoever had taken her His hu into the stalking crouch of a hunting panther, he glided toward the walls, taking advantage of the dense foliage to escape detection from the battlements

As he approached he saw that the walls were coreen stone that had forue sense of fa he had never seen before, but had dreanized the sensation The walls and towers followed the plan of the ruins It was as if the cruinally were

No sound disturbed thequiet as Conan stole to the foot of the hich rose sheer frorowth On the southern reaches of the inland sea the vegetation was almost tropical He saw no one on the battleate a short distance to his left, and had had no reason to suppose that it was not locked and guarded But he believed that the woht was somewhere beyond that wall, and the course he took was characteristically reckless

Above him vine-festooned branches reached out toward the battle a point above the parapet, he gripped a thick lith until he had gained h the air, landing cat-like on the battle there he stared down into the streets of a city

The circureen stone buildings it contained was surprizing They were three or four stories in height,a fine architectural style The streets converged like the spokes of a wheel into an octagon-shaped court in the center of the tohich gave upon a lofty edifice, which, with its do in the streets or looking out of the s, though the sun was already coht have been that of a dead and deserted city A narrow stone stair ascended the wall near him; down this he went

Houses shouldered so closely to the wall that halfway down the stair he found hith of a , and halted to peer in There were no bars, and the silk curtains were caught back with satin cords He looked into a chamber whose walls were hidden by dark velvet tapestries The floor was covered with thick rugs, and there were benches of polished ebony, and an ivory dais heaped with furs

He was about to continue his descent, when he heard the sound of so in the street below Before the unknown person could come round a corner and see hi space and dropped lightly into the roo his sci happened he waswas drawn aside, revealing a cushi+oned alcove frouid eyes

Conan glared at her tensely, expecting herBut she merely smothered a yaith a dainty hand, rose fro which she held with one hand

She was undoubtedly a h her skin was very dark Her square-cut hair was black as arment a wisp of silk about her supple hips

Presently she spoke, but the tongue was unfaain, stretched lithely, and without any show of fear or surprize, shi+fted to a language he did understand, a dialect of Yuetshi+ which sounded strangely archaic

'Are you looking for someone?' she asked, as indifferently as if the invasion of her chainable

'Who are you?' he deuidly 'I ht, I am so sleepy now Who are you?'

'I a her narrowly He believed her attitude to be a pose, and expected her to try to escape froh a velvet rope thatnear her, she did not reach for it

'Conan,' she repeated drowsily 'You are not a Dagonian I suppose you are a mercenary Have you cut the heads off many Yuetshi+?'

'I do not war on water rats!' he snorted

'But they are very terrible,' she murmured 'I remember when they were our slaves But they revolted and burned and slew Only the ic of Khosatral Khel has kept the with the sleepiness of her expression 'I forgot,' she ht There was shouting and fire, and people calling in vain on Khosatral' She shook her head as if to clear it 'But that can not be,' she ht I was dead Oh, to the devil with it!'

She ca Conan's hand, drew him to the dais He yielded in bewilderirl s silky lashes drooped over dusky, clouded eyes She ran her fingers through his thick black locks as if to assure herself of his reality

'It was a dream,' she yawned 'Perhaps it's all a dream I feel like a dreaotten - there is sorow so sleepy when I try to think Anyway, it doesn't matter'

'What do you mean?' he asked uneasily 'You said they cliht? Who?'

'The Yuetshi+ I thought so, anyway A cloud of sht me by the throat and drove his knife into my breast Oh, it hurt! But it was a dream, because see, there is no scar' She idly inspected her smooth bosom, and then sank upon Conan's lap and passed her supple arms around hisher dark head against hisis dim andLet us live while we can Love lossy head in the bend of his heavy arned relish

'You are strong,' she repeated, her voice waning 'Love me -love-' The sleepylashes drooping over the sensuous cheeks; the supple body relaxed in Conan's arms

He scowled down at her She seemed to partake of the illusion that haunted this whole city, but the firers convinced hiirl in his arms, and not the shadow of a dream No less disturbed, he hastily laid her on the furs upon the dais Her sleep was too deep to be natural He decided that she , perhaps like the black lotus of Xuthal

Then he found so the furs on the dais was a gorgeous spotted skin, whose predoolden It was not a clever copy, but the skin of an actual beast And that beast, Conan knew, had been extinct for at least a thousand years; it was the great golden leopard which figures so predoendry, and which the ancient artists delighted to portray in pig his head in bewilder corridor Silence hung over the house, but outside he heard a sound which his keen ears recognized as so the stair on the wall fro An instant later he was startled to hear sohty thud on the floor of the cha quickly away, he hurried along the twisting hallway until soht hiure, which lay half in the hall and half in an opening that obviously was normally concealed by a door which was a duplicate of the panels of the wall It was a man, dark and lean, clad only in a silk loin-cloth, with a shaven head and cruel features, and he lay as if death had struck hi fro the cause of his death, and discovered hiirl in the chamber

But why should he select such a place for his slualvanized by a sound behind hi up the corridor in his direction A quick glance down it showed that it ended in a great door which ht be locked Conan jerked the supine body out of the panel-entrance and stepped through, pulling the panel shut after hi in utter darkness, he heard a shuffling tread halt just outside the door, and a faint chill trickled along his spine That was no human step, nor that of any beast he had ever encountered

There was an instant of silence, then a faint creak of wood andand bending inward, as if a great weight were being steadily borne against it from the outside As he reached for his sword, this ceased and he heard a strange sobringthat prickled the short hairs on his scalp Sci away, and his heels felt steps, dohich he nearly tu doard

He groped his way down in the blackness, feeling for, but not finding, so in the walls Just as he decided that he was no longer in the house, but deep in the earth under it, the steps ceased in a level tunnel

Along the black silent tunnel Conan groped,a fall into soain, and he went up theers found a metal catch He came out into a dim and lofty room of enormous proportions Fantastic colu, which, at once translucent and dusky, see an illusion of iht filtered in fro twilight Conan reat rooreat bronze valves of a giant door Opposite this, on a dais against the wall, up to which led broad curving steps, there stood a throne of copper, and when Conan saas coiled on this throne, he retreated hastily, lifting his sci did not lass steps and stared down at it It was a gigantic snake, apparently carved in some jade-like substance Each scale stood out as distinctly as in real life, and the iridescent colors were vividly reproduced The great wedge-shaped head was half subed in the folds of its trunk; so neither the eyes nor jaere visible Recognition stirred in his mind This snake was evidently ries had haunted the reedy edges of Vilayet's southern shores But, like the golden leopard, they had been extinct for hundreds of years Conan had seen rude i the idol-huts of the Yuetshi+, and there was a description of them in the Book of Skelos, which drew on prehistoric sources

Conan adreat length, and he reached out and laid a curious hand on the thing And as he did so, his heart nearly stopped An icy chill congealed the blood in his veins and lifted the short hair on his scalp Under his hand there was not the slass orthing He fe't cold, sluggish life flowing under his fingers

His hand jerked back in instinctive repulsion Sword shaking in his grasp, horror and revulsion and fear allass steps with painful care, glaring in awful fascination at the grisly thing that slumbered on the copper throne It did not move

He reached the bronze door and tried it, with his heart in his teeth, sweating with fear that he should find himself locked in with that slilided through and closed them behind him

He found himself in a wide hallith lofty tapestried walls, where the light was the saloom It made distant objects indistinct and thatunseen through the dimness A door at the other end seeht Nearer at hand the tapestry hung in such a way as to suggest an opening behind it, and lifting it cautiously he discovered a narrow stair leading up

While he hesitated he heard in the great roo tread he had heard outside the locked panel Had he been followed through the tunnel? He went up the stair hastily, dropping the tapestry in place behind hi corridor, he took the first doorway he came to He had a twofold purpose in his apparently ai and its irl who, he felt, was imprisoned somewhere in this palace, tereat domed edifice in the center of the city, and it was likely that here dwelt the ruler of the town, to whoht