Part 3 (1/2)

He stared at her unconorance hard to understand

'They?' he stauely 'Why - why, the people of Xotalanc! The clan of the ate'

'You mean to say this city is inhabited?' she exclai in the impatience of apprehension 'Come away! Come quick! We must return to Tecuhltli!'

'Where is that?' she deate!' He had her wrist again and was pulling her toward the door through which he had first come Great beads of perspiration dripped from his dark forehead, and his eyes blazed with terror

'Wait aoff his hand 'Keep your hands off me, or I'll split your skull What's all this about? Who are you? Where would you take lances to all sides, and began speaking so fast his words tripped over each other

'My name is Techotl I am of Techuhltli I and this man who lies with his throat cut came into the Halls of Silence to try and ambush some of the Xotalancas But we becaullet slit The Burning Skull did it, I know, just as he would have slain me had you not killed hi from Xotalanc! The Gods themselves blench at the fate of those they take alive!'

At the thought he shook as with an ague and his dark skin grew ashy Valeria frowned puzzledly at hiless to her

She turned toward the skull, which still glowed and pulsed on the floor, and was reaching a booted toe tentatively toward it, when theforith aery

'Do not touch it! Do not even look at it! Madness and death lurk in it The wizards of Xotalanc understand its secret - they found it in the catacos who ruled in Xuchotl in the black centuries of the past To gaze upon it freezes the blood and withers the brain of a man who understands not its mystery To touch it causes madness and destruction'

She scowled at hiure, with his lean, muscle-knotted fralow of terror, lurked a weird light she had never seen in the eyes of a man wholly sane Yet he seeed, reaching for her hand, and then recoiling as he reer How you came here I do not know, but if you were a Goddess or a des you have asked reat forest, whence our ancestors came But you are our friend, or you would not have slain my enemy Come quickly, before the Xotalancas find us and slay us!'

Frolanced to the sinister skull, s on the floor near the dead man It was like a skull seen in a drea distortions and malformations of contour and outline In life the wearer of that skull must have presented an alien and monstrous aspect Life? It seemed to possess some sort of life of its own Its janed at her and snapped together Its radiance grew brighter, rew too; it was a dreaent voice which snapped Valeria back fro

'Do not look at the skull! Do not look at the skull!' It was a far cry across unreckoned voids

Valeria shook herself like a lion shaking his : 'In life it housed the awful brain of a king of ic drawn from outer spaces!'

With a curse Valeria leaped, lithe as a panther, and the skull crashed to fla sword Somewhere in the room, or in the void, or in the dim reaches of her consciousness, an inhue

Techotl's hand was plucking at her ar: 'You have broken it! You have destroyed it! Not all the black arts of Xotalanc can rebuild it! Coo,' she protested 'I have a friend somewhere near by--'

The flare of his eyes cut her short as he stared past her with an expression grown ghastly She wheeled just as fouron the pair in the center of the chamber

They were like the others she had seen, the saaunt lilare in their wide eyes They were armed and clad like Techotl, but on the breast of each was painted a white skull

There were no challenges or war-cries Like blood- at the throats of their enemies Techotl met them with the fury of desperation, ducked the swipe of a wide-headed blade, and grappled with the wielder, and bore him to the floor where they rolled and wrestled in murderous silence

The other three swars

She killed the first who caht blade splitting his skull even as his oord lifted for a stroke She side-stepped a thrust, even as she parried a slash Her eyes danced and her lips sain she was Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, and the hu in her ears

Her sword darted past a blade that sought to parry, and sheathed six inches of its point in a leather-guarded onizedly and went to his knees, but his tallblow on blow so furiously that Valeria had no opportunity to counter She stepped back coolly, parrying the strokes and watching for her chance to thrust ho ind His arm would tire, his ould fail; he would weaken, falter, and then her blade would slide slance showed her Techotl kneeling on the breast of his antagonist and striving to break the other's hold on his wrist and to drive ho her, and his eyes were like burning coals Suard His breath caan to fall erratically She stepped back to draw hirip She had forgotten the woundedon his knees, he held her with both ars, and hishis way around to coely, but in vain She could free herself of this clinging menace with a doard flick of her sword, but in that instant the curved blade of the tall warrior would crash through her skull The wounded h with his teeth like a wild beast

She reached doith her left hand and gripped his long hair, forcing his head back so that his white teeth and rolling eyes gleamed up at her The tall Xotalanc cried out fiercely and leaped in, s with all the fury of his arm Aardly she parried the stroke, and it beat the flat of her blade down on her head so that she saw sparks flash before her eyes, and staggered Up went the sword again, with a low, beast-like cry of triuiant form loomed behind the Xotalanc and steel flashed like a jet of blue lightning The cry of the warrior broke short and he went down like an ox beneath the pole-ax, his brains gushi+ng from his skull that had been split to the throat

'Conan!' gasped Valeria In a gust of passion she turned on the Xotalanc whose long hair she still gripped in her left hand 'Dog of hell!' Her blade swished as it cut the air in an upswinging arc with a blur in theblood She hurled the severed head across the roo on here?' Conan bestrode the corpse of theabout hi figure of the last Xotalanc, shaking red drops froh He stared at Conan with dilated eyes

'What is all this?' Conan de surprise of finding Valeria engaged in a savage battle with these fantastic figures in a city he had thought e from an aimless exploration of the upper cha from the room where he had left her, he had followed the sounds of strife that burst on his dus!' exclaihastly exultation 'Five slain! Five crimson nails for the black pillar! The Gods of blood be thanked!'

He lifted quivering hands on high, and then, with the face of a fiend, he spat on the corpses and stalee His recent allies eyed hiue: 'Who is this ed her shoulders

'He says his naather that his people live at one end of this crazy city, and these others at the other end Maybe we'd better go with him He seems friendly, and it's easy to see that the other clan isn't'

Techotl had ceased his dancing and was listening again, his head tilted sidewise, dog-like, triu with fear in his repellent countenance

'Coh! Five dead dogs! My people elcome you! They will honor you! But come! It is far to Tecuhltli At any reat even for your swords'

'Lead the way,' grunted Conan

Techotl instantlythe rapidly to keep on his heels Having reached the gallery, he plunged into a door that opened toward the west, and hurried through chareen fire-jewels

'What sort of a place can this be?' muttered Valeria under her breath

'Croh They live on the shores of Lake Zuad, near the border of Kush They're a sort of ians, ia froo and were absorbed by the to bet it wasn't they who built this city, though'

Techotl's fear did not seem to diminish as they dreay fro his head on his shoulder to listen for sounds of pursuit, and stared with burning intensity into every doorway they passed

Valeria shi+vered in spite of herself She feared no man But the weird floor beneath her feet, the uncanny jewels over her head, dividing the lurking shadows auide, impressed her with a na, inhuman peril

'They may be between us and Tecuhltli!' he whispered once 'We et out of this infernal palace, and take to the streets?' demanded Valeria

'There are no streets in Xuchotl,' he answered 'No squares nor open courts The whole city is built like one giant palace under one great roof The nearest approach to a street is the Great Hall which traverses the city fro into the outer world are the city gates, through which no livinghave you dwelt here?' asked Conan

'I was born in the castle of Tecuhltli thirty-five years ago I have never set foot outside the city For the love of the Gods, let us go silently! These hallsdevils Olmec shall tell you all e reach Tecuhltli'

So in silence they glided on with the green fire-stones blinking overhead and the na under their feet, and it seeuided by a dark-faced lank-haired goblin

Yet it was Conan who halted the an unusually wide chamber His wilderness-bred ears were keener even than the ears of Techotl whetted though these were by a lifetime of warfare in those silent corridors