Part 23 (2/2)

He found himself in a chamber, not another corridor, and was about to retrace his steps, when he heard a voice which came from behind one of the walls There was no door in that wall, but he leaned close and heard distinctly And an icy chill crawled slowly along his spine The tongue was Ne resonance about it, like a bell tolling at ht

'There was no life in the Abyss, save that which was incorporated in ht, nor uided and impelled h ages upon ages, and the changeless strata of darkness I cli resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight Conan was no longer aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythe and his own individuality, he was seeing the trans ht and the Abyss ages ago to clothe itself in the substance of the material universe

But human flesh was too frail, too paltry to hold the terrific essence that was Khosatral Khel So he stood up in the shape and aspect of a man, but his flesh was not flesh, nor the bone, bone, nor blood, blood He becaainst all nature, for he caused to live and think and act a basic substance that before had never known the pulse and stir of ani

He stalked through the world like a God, for no earthly weapon could hars he caonia, and it pleased hiive this race culture and civilization, and by his aid they built the city of Dagon and they abode there and worshi+pped hirisly were his servants, called frootten ages yet lurked His house in Dagon was connected with every other house by tunnels through which his shaven-headed priests bore victies a fierce and brutish people appeared on the shores of the sea They called themselves Yuetshi+, and after a fierce battle they were defeated and enslaved, and for nearly a generation they died on the altars of Khosatral

His sorcery kept theaunt ed into the wilderness, and when he returned he bore a knife that was of no earthly substance It was forged of aarrow and fell in a far valley The slaves rose Their saw-edged crescents cut down the ainst that unearthly knife the hter bellowed through the red srireat daised chamber with its copper throne and its walls mottled like the skin of serpents

Froed alone He had not slain his foe, because he wished to hold the threat of his loosing over the heads of his own rebellious subjects He had left Khosatral lying upon the golden dais with the mystic knife across his breast for a spell to hold hies passed and the priest died, the towers of deserted Dagon crumbled, the tales becaues and fa the seashore

Only the cryptic dome resisted the rot of time, until a chance thunderbolt and the curiosity of a fisheric knife and broke the spell Khosatral Khel rose and lived and waxed hty once more It pleased him to restore the city as it was in the days before its fall By his necrootten es ain

But folk who have tasted death are only partly alive In the dark corners of their souls and ht the people of Dagon moved and loved, hated and feasted, and rehter only as a di the strangeness of their existence but not inquiring the reasons therefor With the coain only by the coht, which is akin to death

All this rolled in a terrible panorama before Conan's consciousness as he crouched beside the tapestried wall His reason staggered All certainty and sanity were swept away, leaving a shadowy universe through which stole hooded figures of grisly potentialities Through the belling of the voice which was like a tolling of triumph over the ordered laws of a sane planet, a huh spheres ofof a woha waited with growing i the reeds More than an hour passed, and Conan had not reappeared Doubtless he was still searching the island for the girl he thought to be hidden there But another surha Suppose the betrow suspicious and coir spoke to the oarslided toward the carven stairs

Leaving half a dozen hty archers of Khawarizer-skin cloaks Like hunters invading the retreat of the lion, they stole forward under the trees, arrows on string Silence reigned over the forest except when a great green thing that ht have been a parrot swirled over their heads with a low thunder of broad wings, and then sped off through the trees With a sudden gesture Jehungir halted his party, and they stared incredulously at the towers that showed through the verdure in the distance

'Tariir 'The pirates have rebuilt the ruins! Doubtless Conan is there We ate this A fortified town this close to the lided through the trees The game had altered; from pursuers and hunters they had becorowth, the reed arrows

Conan realized with a crawling of his skin that beyond the wall the belling voice had ceased He stood aze fixed on a curtained door through which he knew that a cul horror would presently appear

It was dian to lift on his scalp as he looked He saw a head and a pair of gigantic shoulders grow out of the twilight gloorew ure of a irdle His square-cut old Conan stared at the sweep of thebreast, the bands and ridges and clusters of muscles on torso and limbs The face ithout weakness and without mercy The eyes were balls of dark fire And Conan knew that this was Khosatral Khel, the ancient froonia

No as spoken No as necessary Khosatral spread his great ariant's belly Then he bounded back, eyes blazing with surprise The keen edge had rung on theThen Khosatral cae

There was a fleeting concussion, a fierce writhing and intertwining of li clear, every thew quivering fro fingers had torn the skin In that instant of contact he had experienced the ultimate madness of blasphemed nature; no human flesh had bruised his, butiron which opposed his

Khosatral looers lock and they would not loosen until the hurasp In that twilit chahtht up a heavy bench and hurled it with all his power It was such a hty breast it siant on his braced legs His face lost so of its human aspect, a ni tower he came on

With a desperate wrench Conan ripped a whole section of tapestry froreater than that required for throwing the bench, he flung it over the giant's head For an instant Khosatral floundered, s stuff that resisted his strength as wood or steel could not have done, and in that instant Conan caught up his sci his speed he hurled hi chamber, slammed the door and shot the bolt

Then as he wheeled he stopped short, all the blood in hi on a heap of silk cushi+ons, golden hair strea over her naked shoulders, eyes blank with terror, was the woot the horror at his heels until a splintering crash behind hi for the opposite door She was too helpless with fright either to resist or to aid him A faint whimper was the only sound of which she see the door A shattering stroke of his scih to the stair that loomed beyond it, he saw the head and shoulders of Khosatral crash through the other door The colossus was splintering the massive panels as if they were of cardboard

Conan raced up the stair, carrying the big girl over one shoulder as easily as if she had been a child Where he was going he had no idea, but the stair ended at the door of a round, do up the stair behind them, silently as a wind of death, and as swiftly

The chamber's walls were of solid steel, and so was the door Conan shut it and dropped in place the great bars hich it was furnished The thought struck him that this was Khosatral's chamber, where he locked himself in to sleep securely fro

Hardly were the bolts in place when the great door shook and treed his shoulders This was the end of the trail There was no other door in the chaht, evidently cae of his scimitar, quite cool now that he was at bay He had done his volcanic best to escape; when the giant cah that door he would explode in another savage onslaught with his useless sword, not because he expected it to do any good, but because it was his nature to die fighting For the moment there was no course of action to take, and his calaze he turned on his fair co and intense as if he had a hundred years to live He had dumped her unceremoniously on the floor when he turned to close the door, and she had risen to her knees, arloith approval as they devoured her thick golden hair, her clear wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek with exuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of her splendid hips

A low cry escaped her as the door shook and a bolt gave ith a groan

Conan did not look around He knew the door would hold a little while longer

'They told me you had escaped,' he said 'A Yuetshi+ fisher toldhere What is your naasped ht at hihtmare is this? The people - the dark-skinned people - one of thehtHe told lanced at the door which bulged inward as if fro-ra way Strange that a devil has to break down a door like a coth itself is a diabolis'

Conan was too honest to lie 'If a mortal man could kill him, he'd be dead now,' he answered 'I nicked my blade on his belly'

Her eyes dulled 'Then you must die, and I must - oh Mitra!' she screa that she would har to do to me!' she panted 'Kill me! Kill me with your sword before he bursts the door!'

Conan looked at her, and shook his head

'I'll do what I can,' he said 'That won't be et past him down the stair Then run for the cliffs I have a boat tied at the foot of the steps If you can get out of the palace you may escape him yet The people of this city are all asleep'

She dropped her head in her hands Conan took up his sci door One watching hiarded as inevitable His eyes smoldered more vividly; his muscular hand knotted harder on his hilt; that was all

The hinges had given under the giant's terrible assault and the door rocked crazily, held only by the bolts And these solid steel bars were buckling, bending, bulging out of their sockets Conan watched in an al thethe bombardment ceased In the stillness Conan heard other noises on the landing outside - the beat of wings, and a h ht branches Then presently there was silence, but there was a new feel in the air Only the whetted instincts of barbaris or hearing hier stood outside the door

He glared through a crack that had been started in the steel of the portal The landing was empty He drew the warped bolts and cautiously pulled aside the sagging door Khosatral was not on the stair, but far below he heard the clang of anew devilries or had been su voice, but he wasted no time in conjectures

He called to Octavia, and the new note in his voice brought her up to her feet and to his side alasped

'Don't stop to talk!' He caught her wrist 'Come on!' The chance for action had transformed him; his eyes blazed, his voice crackled 'The knife!' he irl down the stair in his fierce haste 'The ic Yuetshi+ blade! He left it in the dome! I-' his voice died suddenly as a clear reat room where stood the copper throne - sweat started out on his body The only way to that doh that roo that slumbered in it

But he did not hesitate Swiftly they descended the stair, crossed the chareat din of the colossus Halting before the great bronze-valved door, Conan caught Octavia by her shoulders and shook her in his intensity

'Listen!' he snapped T into that room and fasten the door Stand here and listen; if Khosatral coo, run as though the devil were on your heels - which he probably will be Make for that door at the other end of the hall, because I'll be past helping you I' for the Yuetshi+ knife!'

Before she could voice the protest her lips were frah the valves and shut the that it could be worked frori the throne with its loathsome coils He saw a door behind the throne and knew that it led into the dome But to reach it he must mount the dais, a few feet froreen floor would have lued on the sleeping reptile he reached the dais and lass steps The snake had notfor the door

The bolt on the bronze portal clanged and Conan stifled an awful oath as he saw Octavia coloo Then she saw his shadowy figure and ran toward the dais, crying: 'I want to go with you! I'm afraid to stay alone - ohl' She threw up her hands with a terrible scream as for the first tie-shaped head had lifted fro neck