Part 2 (2/2)
Tears rolled froaze strayed to the limbs stretched on the marble couch And he knew the monster would not rise to attack hi brand of the flahast at the ruined deformities which his reason told him had once been limbs as comely as his own And suddenly all fear and repulsion went froreat pity What this monster was, Conan could not know, but the evidences of its sufferings were so terrible and pathetic that a strange aching sadness came over the Ci upon a cosuilt of a whole race were laid upon him
”I am not Yara,” he said ”I am only a thief I will not harm you”
”Come near that I may touch you,” the creature faltered, and Conan caotten in his hand The sensitive trunk caroped over his face and shoulders, as a blind irl's hand
”You are not of Yara's race of devils,” sighed the creature ”The clean, lean fierceness of the wastelands marks you I know your people froo when another world lifted its jeweled spires to the stars There is blood on your fingers”
”A spider in the chaarden,” ht,” answered the other ”And there is death in the tower above I feel; I know”
”Aye,” muttered Conan ”The prince of all thieves lies there dead froe inhu in the tavern and a slaying on the roof -- I know; I feel And the third will ic of deliverance, green Gods of Yag!”
Again tears fell as the tortured body was rocked to and fro in the grip of varied emotions Conan looked on, bewildered
Then the convulsions ceased; the soft, sightless eyes were turned toward the Cimmerian, the trunk beckoned
”O”I am fool and monstrous to you, am I not? Nay, do not answer; I know But you would seee to me, could I see you There are many worlds besides this earth, and life takes many shapes I am neither God nor deh the substance differ in part, and the form be cast in differentand long ago I careen planet Yag, which circles for ever in the outer fringe of this universe We swept through space on ht, because we had warred with the kings of Yag and were defeated and outcast But we could never return, for on earth our wings withered from our shoulders Here we abode apart froe and terrible forms of life which then walked the earth, so that we becales of the East where we had our abode
”We sawcities of Valusia, Kamelia, Commoria, and their sisters We saw them reel before the thrusts of the heathen Atlanteans and Picts and Leulf Atlantis and Le cities of civilization We saw the survivors of Pictdoo down to ruin, locked in bloody wars We saw the Picts sink into abysain We sa savages drift southward in conquering waves frodoms called Nemedia, and Koth, and Aquilonia, and their sisters We saw your people rise under a new nales of the apes that had been Atlanteans We saw the descendants of the Leh savagery and ride ard, as Hyrkanians Andthis race of devils, survivors of the ancient civilization that was before Atlantis sank, codo nor hindering the i are not ih our lives are as the lives of planets and constellations At last I alone was left, dreale-lost Khitai, worshi+pped as a God by an ancient yellow-skinned race Then cah the days of barbarism, since before Atlantis sank
”First he sat at my feet and learned wisdoht hiic, and he wished evil lore, to enslave kings and glut a fiendish aained, through no wish of h the eons
”But his wisdo the dusky to a secret I had not intended to bare; and turning , ht ray apes danced to the pipes of the yellow priests, and offerings of fruit and wine heaped lefolk -- I was slave to a devil in hu eyes
”He pent me in this tohich at his coht By fire and rack he e unearthly tortures you would not understand In agony I would long ago have taken led, blinded, and broken -- to do his foul bidding And for three hundred years I have done his bidding, fromy wisdom with crimes, because I had no other choice Yet not all ift shall be the sorcery of the Blood and the Jewel
”For I feel the end of ti of you, take the geold and ivory altar indicated, and took up a great round jewel, clear as crimson crystal; and he knew that this was the Heart of the Elephant
”Now for the great ic, such as earth has not seen before, and shall not see again, though a million million of millenniureen breast of Yag, dreareat, blue vastness of space