Part 34 (2/2)

Since the unknown monster had already struck, Airl alone for a few roped his way down the winding corridor and through the black cha tapestries whispered He found the beasts huddled nervously together in the court where he had left them The stallion whinnied anxiously and nuzzled hiht

He saddled and bridled and hurriedly led the onto the street A fewin the starlit court And even as he reached it; he was electrified by an awful screaly upon the air It came from the chamber where he had left Lissa

He answered that piteous cry with a wild yell; drawing his sword, he rushed across the court and hurled hiain, carving out black shadows in the shrinking corners Silks lay scattered on the floor The marble seat was upset But the chamber was eered against the ht Then he ept by a e The red tower! There the fiend would bear his victim!

He darted across the court, found the streets and raced toward the tohich gloith an unholy light under the stars

The streets did not run straight He cut through silent black buildings and crossed courts whose rank grass waved in the night wind

Ahead of him, clustered about the crimson tower, rose a heap of ruins where decay had eaten ely than at the rest of the city Apparently none dwelt athem like a poisonous red flower from charnel-house ruin

To reach the tower he would be forced to traverse the ruins Recklessly, he plunged into the blackfor a door He found one and entered, thrusting his sword ahead of him Then he saw such a vista as men someti corridor, visible in a faint, unhallowed glow, its black walls hung with strange shud-dersoure - a white, naked, stooped figure, lurching along, dragging so horror Then the apparition vanished frolow A nothing; thinking only of that stooped white figure that dragged a liroped onward, a vague risly talefire in the skull-heaped, devil-devil hut of a black witchman - a tale of a God which dwelt in a crimson house in a ruined city and which orshi+pped by darkso sullen dusky rivers And there stirred, too, in his mind an incantation whispered in his ear in awed and shuddering tones, while the night had held its breath, the lions had ceased to roar along the river, and the very fronds had ceased their scraping one against the other

Ollahtless corridor Ollaround beneath his stealthy feet Sweat stood on his skin and the sword shook in his hand He stole through the house of a God, and fear held him by its bony hand The bouse of the God - the full horror of the phrase filled his mind All the ancestral fears and the fears that reached beyond ancestry and primordial race-memory crowded upon him; horror cosmic and unhuman sickened him His weak huh the house of darkness that was the house of a God

About hilow so faint that it was scarcely discernible; he knew that he was approaching the tower itself Another instant and he groped his way through an arched door and stuely spaced steps Up them he went and, as he cliainst diabolised in hierness, he clih the thick, evil darkness until he calow

And before hiue cleaving to his palate It was a naked whiteat hihty arms folded on an alabaster breast The features were classic, cleanly carven, with more than human beauty But the eyes were balls of luminous fire, such as never looked frolimpsed the frozen fires of the ultimate hells, touched by awful shadows

Then before hirow dim in outline - to waver With a terrible effort, the Aquilonian burst the bonds of silence and spoke a cryptic and awful incantation And as the frightful words cut the silence, the white giant halted - froze -again his outlines stood out clear and bold against the golden background

'Now fall on, damn you!' cried Amalric hysterically 'I have bound you into your human shape! The black wizard spoke truly! It was the a -till you break the spell by feasting on my heart, you are no more than a ust of a ind, the creature charged A aside froth was er, spread wide and catching in his tunic, ripped the gared by But Amalric, nerved to ht, wheeled and drove his sword through the thing's back, so that the point stood out a foot froony shook the tower; theaside and raced up the stairs to the dais There he wheeled and, catching up aup the stairs Full in the face thethe fiend back down the steps He rose, an awful sight, streaain essayed the stairs In desperation, Aroan of effort fro bulk, Olla the marble shards, which were flooded with his blood With a last, desperate effort, he heaved hi back his bloody head, voiced an awful cry Amalric shuddered and recoiled from the abysmal horror of that scream And it was answered From somewhere in the air above the tower a faint led white figure went li the blood-stained shards And Amalric knew that one of the Gods of Kush was nohorror

In a fog of terror he rushed down the stair, shrinking froht seee Reason, exultant over his triued in a flood of cosmic fear

As he put foot on the head of the steps, he halted short Up from the darkness Lissa came to him, her white arms outstretched, her eyes pools of horror and revulsion

'A cry He crushed her in his ar a dead h the corridor I screamed and fled; then when I returned, I heard you cry out and knew you had gone to search for me in the red tower-'

'And you came to share my fate,' his voice was al fascination past him, he covered her eyes with his hands and turned her about Better that she should not see what lay on the crimson floor As he half led, half carried her down the shadowed stairs, a glance over his shoulder showed hi the broken a into his human form in life, but not in death Blindness alvanized into frantic haste, he hurried Lissa down the stairs and through the dark ruins

He did not slacken pace until they reached the street where the caainst one another Quickly he placed the girl on the ca the lead-line, he headed straight for the broken wall A few ustily The open air of the desert cooled his blood; it was free of the scent of decay and hideous antiquity

There was a s from his saddle bow They had no food, and his sas in the chamber of the red tower He had not dared touch it Without food and unarrim than the horror of the city behind the they rode Amalric headed south; somewhere in that direction there was a water hole Just at dawn, as they mounted a crest of sand, he looked back toward Gazal, unreal in the pink light And he stiffened as Lissa, sharing his vision, cried out From a breach in the wall rode seven horsemen; their steeds were black, and the riders were cloaked in black from head to foot Horror swept over Amalric as he realized there had been no horses in Gazal Turning, he urged their old, and then a ball of white-beaten fla with heat and fatigue, blinded by the glare They moistened their lips ater from time to time, and behind thean to fall, and the sun reddened and lurched toward the desert rim And a cold hand clutched at A in As darkness calanced at Lissa, and a groan burst froone down, the moon was blotted out suddenly by a bat-shaped shadow In the utter darkness the stars glowed red, and behind hi wind A black, speeding clulinted sparks of awful light

'Ride girl!' he cried despairingly 'Go on - save yourself; it is me they want!'

For answer she slid down from the camel and threw her arms about him

'I will die with you!'

Seven black shapes loo like the wind Under the hoods shone balls of evil fire Jaw bones seeether Suddenly, a horse swept past Aue bulk in the unnatural darkness There was the sound of an i shapes A horse screae tongue Froht a clamor of yells answered

So place Horse's hoofs stae blows, and the sa lustily Then the moon abruptly caiant horse whirled, slashed and smote apparently at thin air, and from another direction swept a wild horde of riders, their curved swords flashi+ng in the ures were vanishi+ng, their cloaks floating out like the wings of bats

Amalric amped by wild men who leaped from their horses and swarmed around him Sinewy, naked arms pinioned him; fierce brown, hawk-like faces snarled at hiht and left as the h the crowd He bent frolared closely at Amalric

'The devil!' he roared 'Amalric the Aquilonian!'

'Conan!' Amalric exclaimed bewilderedly 'Conan! Alive!'

'More alive than you seem to be,' answered the other 'By Crom, man, you look as if all the devils in this desert had been hunting you through the night What things were those pursuing you? I was riding around the ca, when the ht I rode towards the sounds and, by Cro I had my sword in my hand and I laid about me - by Croe bit theone like a puff of wind Were they men or fiends?'

'Ghouls sent up from hell,' shuddered As that cannot be discussed'

Conan did not press the ht fiends, ghosts, hobgoblins and dwarfe

'Trust you to find a wo at Lissa, who had crept to A fearfully at the wild figures which he flasks! Here!' He seized a leather flask from those who thrust it out to hi and drink some yourself,' he advised 'Then we'll put you on horses and take you to the camp You need food, rest and sleep I can see that'

A richly caparisoned horse was brought, rearing and prancing, and willing hands helped Airl was handed up to him, and they moved off southward, surrounded by the wiry brown riders in their picturesque se of the mercenaries

'Who is he?' whispered Lissa, her ar her on the saddle in front of him

'Conan, the Cimmerian,' muttered Amalric 'The man I wandered with in the desert after the defeat of the mercenaries These are theunder their spears, apparently dead Noe meet him obviously in command of, and respected by them'

'He is a terrible man,' she whispered

He smiled 'You never sahite-skinned barbarian before He is a wanderer and a plunderer and a slayer, but he has his own code ofto fear froht be said that he had forfeited Conan's co the Ciround But he had not known that Conan was alive Doubt haunted Aely loyal to his companions, the Cimmerian's wild nature saw no reason why the rest of the world should not be plundered He lived by the sword And Aht chance did Conan desire Lissa

Later on, having eaten and drunk in the camp of the riders, Amalric sat by a small fire in front of Conan's tent; Lissa, covered with a silken cloak, slumbered with her curly head on his knees And across frohts and shadows

'Who are theseAquilonian 'The riders of Tombalku,' answered the Cimmerian 'Tombalku!' exclaireed Conan 'When my accursed steed fell with me, I was knocked senseless, and when I recovered consciousness the devils had ered me, so I snapped several of the cords they had tied me with, but they rebound theet a hand entirely free But to theazed at Conan unspeaking The man was tall and broad as Tilutan had been, without the dead man's surplus flesh He could have broken the Ghanata's neck with his naked hands 'They decided to carryht aby torture, and so give them sport Well, they bound me on a horse without a saddle, and ent to Tos of Tombalku They took me before them - one a lean, brown-skinned devil na black who dozed on his ivory-tusk throne They spoke a dialect I could understand a little, it being o ell on the coast Zehbeh asked one of his priests what should be done with me, and the priest cast dice made of sheep bone, and said I should be flayed alive before the altar of Jhil Everyone cheered and that woke the other king

'I spat at the priest and cursed hi theood belly-full of wine before they began Then I damned them for thieves and cowards and sons of harlots

'At this the black king roused and sat up to stare at me Then he rose and shouted: ”Amra!” and I knew him - Sakumbe, a Suba from the Black Coast, a fat adventurer I had knoell in the days when I was a corsair along the coast He trafficked in ivory, gold dust and slaves, and would cheat the devil out of his eye-teeth Well, he knew me and descended from his throne and embraced me for joy - the fat, smelly devil - and took my cords off with his own hands Then he announced that I was Amra, the Lion, his friend, and that no harm should come to me Then followed much discussion because Zehbeh and his priest, Daura, wanted my life But Sakumbe yelled for his witch-finder, Askia, and he came, all feathers and bells and snake-skins - a wizard of the Black Coast, and a son of the devil if there ever was one