Part 31 (2/2)

'Who are you? What do you in Xuthal? Who is that girl?' 'Who are you?' bluntly countered Conan, who quickly wearied of answering questions

'I aian,' she replied 'Are you rowled 'By Crom, if I am sane, I'm out of place here, because these people are allof thirst and hunger, and we come upon a dead man who tries to stab me in the back We enter a palace rich and luxuriant, yet apparently empty We find a meal set, but with no feasters Then we see a shadow devour a sleeping htly 'Well?'

'Well what?' she de control of herself

'I was just waiting for you to run through the roo like a oman,' he answered 'The ed her slim ivory shoulders 'That was the screams I heard, then Well, to every man his fate, and it's foolish to squeal like a rat in a trap When Thog wants ?' de appraising stare that brought color to Natala's face and made her bite her small red lip

'Sit down on that divan and I will tell you,' she said 'But first tell me your names'

'I ahter of Brythunia,' he answered 'We are refugees of an army destroyed on the borders of Kush But I aht steal up on h, she seated herself, stretching out her supple limbs with studied abandon

'Be at ease,' she advised 'If Thog wishes you, he will take you, wherever you are That man you ive one great cry, and then fall silent? In his frenzy, he ht to escape No runted non-coe of a couch, his saber across his knees, his eyes wandering suspiciously about the cha hier woman with suspicion and resentnificant before this glamorous beauty, and she could not mistake the look in the dark eyes which feasted on every detail of the bronzed giant's physique

'What is this place, and who are these people?' demanded Conan

'This city is called Xuthal; it is very ancient It is built over an oasis, which the founders of Xuthal found in their wanderings

They cao that not even their descendants ree'

'Surely there are not many of them; these palaces seeht think The city is really one great palace, with every building inside the walls closely connected with the others Youthese chambers for hours and see no one At other times, you would meet hundreds of the inhabitants'

'How is that?' Conan inquired uneasily; this savored too strongly of sorcery for comfort

'Much of the time these people lie in sleep Their drea life You have heard of the black lotus? In certain pits of the city it grows Through the ages they have cultivated it, until, instead of death, its juice induces dreaeous and fantastic In these dreaue, erratic, and without plan They dreaain They seldoin, but leave it half coain into the slumber of the black lotus That er, prepared the ot about it and wandered away to dreaet their food?' interrupted Conan 'I saw no fields or vineyards outside the city Have they orchards and cattle-pens within the walls?'

She shook her head 'They manufacture their own food out of the primal eleed with their dreaiants, who built this h the race became slaves to their curious passions, soe still rehts? They are jewels, fused with radiulow, and rub theuish thele exaotten They take little interest in waking life, choosing to lie most of the tiate-' began Conan

'Was doubtless slu Sleepers of the lotus are like the dead Animation is apparently suspended It is in of life The spirit has left the body and is roaate was a good exauarding the gate, where custoh no enemy has ever advanced across the desert In other parts of the city you would find other guards, generally sleeping as soundly as the ate'

Conan mulled over this for a space

'Where are the people now?'

'Scattered in different parts of the city; lying on couches, on silken divans, in cushi+on-littered alcoves, on fur-covered daises; all wrapt in the shi+ning veil of dreams'

Conan felt the skin twitch between histo think of hundreds of people lying cold and still throughout the tapestried palaces, their glassy eyes turned unseeingly upward He re that stole through the chambers and carried away the man on the dais?'

A shudder twitched her ivory li, the Ancient, the God of Xuthal, ells in the sunken dome in the center of the city He has always dwelt in Xuthal Whether he came here with the ancient founders, or was here when they built the city, none knows But the people of Xuthal worshi+p hiular intervals he grows hungry, and then he steals through the secret corridors and the di prey Then none is safe'

Natala hty neck as if to resist an effort to drag her frohast 'You mean to tell me these people lie down cal thery,' she repeated 'A God ia the people lived under the shadow of the priests None ever knehen he or she would be seized and dragged to the altar What difference whether the priests give a victim to the Gods, or the God comes for his own victirowled, 'nor of Natala's either The Hyborians do not sacrifice humans to their God, Mitra, and as fora Cimmerian to the altar! There'd be blood spilt, but not as the priest intended'

'You are a barbarian,' laughed Thalis, but with a glow in her lu is very ancient and very terrible'

'These folk runted Conan, 'to lie down and dreaht awaken in his belly'

She laughed 'They know nothing else For untold generations Thog has preyed on them He has been one of the factors which have reduced their nuenerations and they will be extinct, and Thog must either fare forth into the world for new prey, or retire to the underworld whence he cao

'They realize their ultimate doom, but they are fatalists, incapable of resistance or escape Not one of the present generation has been out of sight of these walls There is an oasis a day's march to the south - I have seen it on the old maps their ancestors drew on parchenerations, rasslands which theanother day'srace, drowned in lotus-dreaolden hich heals wounds, prolongs life, and invigorates theto life, and fear the deity they worshi+p You sa one wentthe palaces I have seen the whole city screaates, to cower outside the walls and draw lots to see which would be bound and flung back through the arched doorways to satisfy Thog's lust and hunger Were they not all slu and shrieking again through the outer gates'

'Oh, Conan!' begged Natala hysterically 'Let us flee!'

'In good ti on Thalis' ivory li here?'

'I ca lithely back against the velvet divan, and intertwining her slender fingers behind her dusky head 'I a, no common woman, as you can see by my skin, which is as white as that of your little blond there I was abducted by a rebel prince, ith an army of Kushi+te bow for a land he could make his own He and all his warriors perished in the desert, but one, before he died, placed me on a camel and walked beside it until he dropped and died in his tracks The beast wandered on, and I finally passed into deliriuer, and awakened in this city They toldsenseless beside a dead caht olden wine And only the sight of a woman would have led them to have ventured that far from their walls

'They were naturally much interested in e, they learned to speak mine They are very quick and able of intellect; they learnedbefore I learned theirs But they were e I have been, and ao his lotus-drea her audacious eyes ly at Conan

'Of course the women are jealous of h in their yellow-skinned way, but they are dreamy and uncertain as the men, and these latter like me not only for h I have dreamed the dreams of the lotus, I am a normal woman, with earthly emotions and desires With such these moon-eyed yelloomen can not compare

'That is why it would be better for you to cut that girl's throat with your saber, before the h paces she never dreamed of! She is too soft to endure what I have thrived on I ahter of Luxur, and before I had known fifteen suh the temples of Derketo, the dusky Goddess, and had been initiated into the mysteries Not that my first years in Xuthal were years of unotten more than the priestesses of Derketo ever drea, their lives are filled with exotic ecstasies, beyond the ken of ordinary rowled Conan 'It is all in the point of view,' s time I can see this is no place for ordinarycomes to devour us I think the desert would be kinder'

Natala, whose blood had curdled in her veins at Thalis's words, fervently agreed She could speak Stygian only brokenly, but she understood it well enough Conan stood up, drawing her up beside him

'If you'll show us the nearest way out of this city,' he grunted, 'we'll take ourselves off' But his gaze lingered on the Stygian's sleek limbs and ivory breasts

She did not reat lazy cat

'Follow me,' she directed and led the way, conscious of Conan's eyes fixed on her supple figure and perfectly poised carriage She did not go the way they had come, but before Conan's suspicions could be roused, she halted in a wide ivory-cased chaled in the center of the ivory floor

'Don't you want to wash your face, child?' she asked Natala 'It is stained with dust, and there is dust in your hair'

Natala colored resentfully at the suggestion oftone, but she co miserably just how ht on her complexion - a feature for which women of her race were justly noted She knelt beside the fountain, shook back her hair, slipped her tunic down to her waist, and began to lave not only her face, but her white arms and shoulders as well