crawled anew, for she recognized it as the soft opening of a door. Men
had come into the corridor behind them. Even with the thought she
stumbled over something that felt like a human skull. It rolled across
the floor with an appalling clatter.
"Run!" yelped Techotl, a note of hysteria in his voice, and was away
down the corridor like a flying ghost.
Again Valeria felt Conan's hand bearing her up and sweeping her along as
they raced after their guide. Conan could see in the dark no better than
she, but he possessed a sort of instinct that made his course unerring.
Without his support and guidance she would have fallen or stumbled
against the wall. Down the corridor they sped, while the swift patter of
flying feet drew closer and closer, and then suddenly Techotl panted:
"Here is the stair! After me, quick! Oh, quick!"
His hand came out of the dark and caught Valeria's wrist as she stumbled
blindly on the steps. She felt herself half dragged, half lifted up the
winding stair, while Conan released her and turned on the steps, his
ears and instincts telling him their foes were hard at their backs. _And
the sounds were not all those of human feet._
Something came writhing up the steps, something that slithered and
rustled and brought a chill in the air with it. Conan lashed down with
his great sword and felt the blade shear through something that might
have been flesh and bone, and cut deep into the stair beneath. Something
touched his foot that chilled like the touch of frost, and then the
darkness beneath him was disturbed by a frightful thrashing and lashing,
and a man cried out in agony.
The next moment Conan was racing up the winding staircase, and through a
door that stood open at the head.
Valeria and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the door
and shot a bolt across it--the first Conan had seen since they left the
outer gate.
Then he turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they
had come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conan glanced
back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure
violently applied from the other side.
Though Techotl did not abate either his speed or his caution, he seemed
more confident now. He had the air of a man who has come into familiar
territory, within call of friends.
But Conan renewed his terror by asking: "What was that thing that I
fought on the stair?"
"The men of Xotalanc," answered Techotl, without looking back. "I told
you the halls were full of them."
"This wasn't a man," grunted Conan. "It was something that crawled, and
it was as cold as ice to the touch. I think I cut it asunder. It fell
back on the men who were following us, and must have killed one of them
in its death throes."
Techotl's head jerked back, his face ashy again. Convulsively he
quickened his pace.
"It was the Crawler! A monster _they_ have brought out of the catacombs
to aid them! What it is, we do not know, but we have found our people
hideously slain by it. In Set's name, hasten! If they put it on our
trail, it will follow us to the very doors of Tecuhltli!"
"I doubt it," grunted Conan. "That was a shrewd cut I dealt it on the
stair."
"Hasten! Hasten!" groaned Techotl.
They ran through a series of green-lit chambers, traversed a broad hall,
and halted before a giant bronze door.
Techotl said: "This is Tecuhltli!"
_3. The People of the Feud_
Techotl smote on the bronze door with his clenched hand, and then turned
sidewise, so that he could watch back along the hall.
"Men have been smitten down before this door, when they thought they
were safe," he said.
"Why don't they open the door?" asked Conan.
"They are looking at us through the Eye," answered Techotl. "They are
puzzled at the sight of you." He lifted his voice and called: "Open the
door, Xecelan! It is I, Techotl, with friends from the great world
beyond the forest!--They will open," he assured his allies.
"They'd better do it in a hurry, then," said Conan grimly. "I hear
something crawling along the floor beyond the hall."
Techotl went ashy again and attacked the door with his fists, screaming:
"Open, you fools, open! The Crawler is at our heels!"
Even as he beat and shouted, the great bronze door swung noiselessly
back, revealing a heavy chain across the entrance, over which
spear-heads bristled and fierce countenances regarded them intently for
an instant. Then the chain was dropped and Techotl grasped the arms of
his friends in a nervous frenzy and fairly dragged them over the
threshold. A glance over his shoulder just as the door was closing
showed Conan the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the
other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view,
flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous
blood-stained head wagging drunkenly. Then the closing door shut off the
view.
Inside the square chamber into which they had come heavy bolts were
drawn across the door, and the chain locked into place. The door was
made to stand the battering of a siege. Four men stood on guard, of the
same lank-haired, dark-skinned breed as Techotl, with spears in their
hands and swords at their hips. In the wall near the door there was a
complicated contrivance of mirrors which Conan guessed was the Eye
Techotl had mentioned, so arranged that a narrow, crystal-paned slot in
the wall could be looked through from within without being discernible
from without. The four guardsmen stared at the strangers with wonder,
but asked no question, nor did Techotl vouchsafe any information. He
moved with easy confidence now, as if he had shed his cloak of
indecision and fear the instant he crossed the threshold.
"Come!" he urged his new-found friends, but Conan glanced toward the
door.
"What about those fellows who were following us? Won't they try to storm
that door?"
Techotl shook his head.
"They know they cannot break down the Door of the Eagle. They will flee
back to Xotalanc, with their crawling fiend. Come! I will take you to
the rulers of Tecuhltli."
* * * * *
One of the four guards opened the door opposite the one by which they
had entered, and they passed through into a hallway which, like most of
the rooms on that level, was lighted by both the slot-like skylights and
the clusters of winking fire-gems. But unlike the other rooms they had
traversed, this hall showed evidences of occupation. Velvet tapestries
adorned the glossy jade walls, rich rugs were on the crimson floors, and
the ivory seats, benches and divans were littered with satin cushions.
The hall ended in an ornate door, before which stood no guard. Without
ceremony Techotl thrust the door open and ushered his friends into a
broad chamber, where some thirty dark-skinned men and women lounging on
satin-covered couches sprang up with exclamations of amazement.
The men, all except one, were of the same type as Techotl, and the women
were equally dark and strange-eyed, though not unbeautiful in a weird
dark way. They wore sandals, golden breast-plates, and scanty silk
skirts supported by gem-crusted girdles, and their black manes, cut
square at their naked shoulders, were bound with silver circlets.
On a wide ivory seat on a jade dais sat a man and a woman who differed
subtly from the others. He was a giant, with an enormous sweep of breast
and the shoulders of a bull. Unlike the others, he was bearded, with a
thick, blue-black beard which fell almost to his broad girdle. He wore a
robe of purple silk which reflected changing sheens of color with his
every movement, and one wide sleeve, drawn back to his elbow, revealed a
forearm massive with corded muscles. The band which confined his
blue-black locks was set with glittering jewels.
The woman beside him sprang to her feet with a startled exclamation as
the strangers entered, and her eyes, passing over Conan, fixed
themselves with burning intensity on Valeria. She was tall and lithe, by
far the most beautiful woman in the room. She was clad more scantily
even than the others; for instead of a skirt she wore merely a broad
strip of gilt-worked purple cloth fastened to the middle of her girdle
which fell below her knees. Another strip at the back of her girdle
completed that part of her costume, which she wore with a cynical
indifference. Her breast-plates and the circlet about her temples were
adorned with gems. In her eyes alone of all the dark-skinned people
there lurked no brooding gleam of madness. She spoke no word after her
first exclamation; she stood tensely, her hands clenched, staring at
Valeria.
The man on the ivory seat had not risen.
"Prince Olmec," spoke Techotl, bowing low, with arms outspread and the
palms of his hands turned upward, "I bring allies from the world beyond
the forest. In the Chamber of Tezcoti the Burning Skull slew Chicmec, my
companion----"
"The Burning Skull!" It was a shuddering whisper of fear from the people
of Tecuhltli.
"Aye! Then came I, and found Chicmec lying with his throat cut. Before I
could flee, the Burning Skull came upon me, and when I looked upon it my
blood became as ice and the marrow of my bones melted. I could neither
fight nor run. I could only await the stroke. Then came this
white-skinned woman and struck him down with her sword; and lo, it was
only a dog of Xotalanc with white paint upon his skin and the living
skull of an ancient wizard upon his head! Now that skull lies in many
pieces, and the dog who wore it is a dead man!"
An indescribably fierce exultation edged the last sentence, and was
echoed in the low, savage exclamations from the crowding listeners.
"But wait!" exclaimed Techotl. "There is more! While I talked with the
woman, four Xotalancas came upon us! One I slew--there is the stab in my
thigh to prove how desperate was the fight. Two the woman killed. But we
were hard pressed when this man came into the fray and split the skull
of the fourth! Aye! Five crimson nails there are to be driven into the
pillar of vengeance!"
He pointed at a black column of ebony which stood behind the dais.
Hundreds of red dots scarred its polished surface--the bright scarlet
heads of heavy copper nails driven into the black wood.
"Five red nails for five Xotalanca lives!" exulted Techotl, and the
horrible exultation in the faces of the listeners made them inhuman.
"Who are these people?" asked Olmec, and his voice was like the low,
deep rumble of a distant bull. None of the people of Xuchotl spoke
loudly. It was as if they had absorbed into their souls the silence of
the empty halls and deserted chambers.
"I am Conan, a Cimmerian," answered the barbarian briefly. "This woman
is Valeria of the Red Brotherhood, an Aquilonian pirate. We are
deserters from an army on the Darfar border, far to the north, and are
trying to reach the coast."
The woman on the dais spoke loudly, her words tripping in her haste.
"You can never reach the coast! There is no escape from Xuchotl! You
will spend the rest of your lives in this city!"
"What do you mean?" growled Conan, clapping his hand to his hilt and
stepping about so as to face both the dais and the rest of the room.
"Are you telling us we're prisoners?"
"She did not mean that," interposed Olmec. "We are your friends. We
would not restrain you against your will. But I fear other circumstances
will make it impossible for you to leave Xuchotl."
His eyes flickered to Valeria, and he lowered them quickly.
"This woman is Tascela," he said. "She is a princess of Tecuhltli. But
let food and drink be brought our guests. Doubtless they are hungry, and
weary from their long travels."
He indicated an ivory table, and after an exchange of glances, the
adventurers seated themselves. The Cimmerian was suspicious. His fierce
blue eyes roved about the chamber, and he kept his sword close to his
hand. But an invitation to eat and drink never found him backward. His
eyes kept wandering to Tascela, but the princess had eyes only for his
white-skinned companion.
* * * * *
Techotl, who had bound a strip of silk about his wounded thigh, placed
himself at the table to attend to the wants of his friends, seeming to
consider it a privilege and honor to see after their needs. He inspected
the food and drink the others brought in gold vessels and dishes, and
tasted each before he placed it before his guests. While they ate, Olmec
sat in silence on his ivory seat, watching them from under his broad
black brows. Tascela sat beside him, chin cupped in her hands and her
elbows resting on her knees. Her dark, enigmatic eyes, burning with a
mysterious light, never left Valeria's supple figure. Behind her seat a
sullen handsome girl waved an ostrich-plume fan with a slow rhythm.
The food was fruit of an exotic kind unfamiliar to the wanderers, but
very palatable, and the drink was a light crimson wine that carried a
heady tang.
"You have come from afar," said Olmec at last. "I have read the books of
our fathers. Aquilonia lies beyond the lands of the Stygians and the
Shemites, beyond Argos and Zingara; and Cimmeria lies beyond Aquilonia."
"We have each a roving foot," answered Conan carelessly.
"How you won through the forest is a wonder to me," quoth Olmec. "In
bygone days a thousand fighting-men scarcely were able to carve a road
through its perils."
"We encountered a bench-legged monstrosity about the size of a
mastodon," said Conan casually, holding out his wine goblet which
Techotl filled with evident pleasure. "But when we'd killed it we had no
further trouble."
The wine vessel slipped from Techotl's hand to crash on the floor. His
dusky skin went ashy. Olmec started to his feet, an image of stunned
amazement, and a low gasp of awe or terror breathed up from the others.
Some slipped to their knees as if their legs would not support them.
Only Tascela seemed not to have heard. Conan glared about him
bewilderedly.
"What's the matter? What are you gaping about?"
"You--you slew the dragon-god?"
"God? I killed a dragon. Why not? It was trying to gobble us up."
"But dragons are immortal!" exclaimed Olmec. "They slay each other, but
no man ever killed a dragon! The thousand fighting-men of our ancestors
who fought their way to Xuchotl could not prevail against them! Their
swords broke like twigs against their scales!"
"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous
juice of Derketa's Apples," quoth Conan, with his mouth full, "and jab
them in the eyes or mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that
dragons are not more immortal than any other chunk of beef. The carcass
lies at the edge of the trees, just within the forest. If you don't
believe me, go and look for yourself."
Olmec shook his head, not in disbelief but in wonder.
"It was because of the dragons that our ancestors took refuge in
Xuchotl," said he. "They dared not pass through the plain and plunge
into the forest beyond. Scores of them were seized and devoured by the
monsters before they could reach the city."
"Then your ancestors didn't build Xuchotl?" asked Valeria.
"It was ancient when they first came into the land. How long it had
stood here, not even its degenerate inhabitants knew."
"Your people came from Lake Zuad?" questioned Conan.
"Aye. More than half a century ago a tribe of the Tlazitlans rebelled
against the Stygian king, and, being defeated in battle, fled southward.
For many weeks they wandered over grasslands, desert and hills, and at
last they came into the great forest, a thousand fighting-men with their
women and children.
"It was in the forest that the dragons fell upon them, and tore many to
pieces; so the people fled in a frenzy of fear before them, and at last
came into the plain and saw the city of Xuchotl in the midst of it.
"They camped before the city, not daring to leave the plain, for the
night was made hideous with the noise of the battling monsters
throughout the forest. They made war incessantly upon one another. Yet
they came not into the plain.
"The people of the city shut their gates and shot arrows at our people
from the walls. The Tlazitlans were imprisoned on the plain, as if the
ring of the forest had been a great wall; for to venture into the woods
would have been madness.
"That night there came secretly to their camp a slave from the city, one
of their own blood, who with a band of exploring soldiers had wandered
into the forest long before, when he was a young man. The dragons had
devoured all his companions, but he had been taken into the city to
dwell in servitude. His name was Tolkemec." A flame lighted the dark
eyes at mention of the name, and some of the people muttered obscenely
and spat. "He promised to open the gates to the warriors. He asked only
that all captives taken be delivered into his hands.
"At dawn he opened the gates. The warriors swarmed in and the halls of
Xuchotl ran red. Only a few hundred folk dwelt there, decaying remnants
of a once great race. Tolkemec said they came from the east, long ago,
from Old Kosala, when the ancestors of those who now dwell in Kosala
came up from the south and drove forth the original inhabitants of the
land. They wandered far westward and finally found this forest-girdled
plain, inhabited then by a tribe of black people.
"These they enslaved and set to building a city. From the hills to the
east they brought jade and marble and lapis lazuli, and gold, silver and
copper. Herds of elephants provided them with ivory. When their city was
completed, they slew all the black slaves. And their magicians made a
terrible magic to guard the city; for by their necromantic arts they
re-created the dragons which had once dwelt in this lost land, and whose
monstrous bones they found in the forest. Those bones they clothed in
flesh and life, and the living beasts walked the earth as they walked it
when Time was young. But the wizards wove a spell that kept them in the
forest and they came not into the plain.
* * * * *
"So for many centuries the people of Xuchotl dwelt in their city,
cultivating the fertile plain, until their wise men learned how to grow
fruit within the city--fruit which is not planted in soil, but obtains
its nourishment out of the air--and then they let the irrigation ditches
run dry, and dwelt more and more in luxurious sloth, until decay seized
them. They were a dying race when our ancestors broke through the forest
and came into the plain. Their wizards had died, and the people had
forgot their ancient necromancy. They could fight neither by sorcery nor
the sword.
"Well, our fathers slew the people of Xuchotl, all except a hundred
which were given living into the hands of Tolkemec, who had been their
slave; and for many days and nights the halls re-echoed to their screams
under the agony of his tortures.
"So the Tlazitlans dwelt here, for a while in peace, ruled by the
brothers Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, and by Tolkemec. Tolkemec took a girl
of the tribe to wife, and because he had opened the gates, and because
he knew many of the arts of the Xuchotlans, he shared the rule of the
tribe with the brothers who had led the rebellion and the flight.
"For a few years, then, they dwelt at peace within the city, doing
little but eating, drinking and making love, and raising children. There
was no necessity to till the plain, for Tolkemec taught them how to
cultivate the air-devouring fruits. Besides, the slaying of the
Xuchotlans broke the spell that held the dragons in the forest, and they
came nightly and bellowed about the gates of the city. The plain ran red
with the blood of their eternal warfare, and it was then that----" He
bit his tongue in the midst of the sentence, then presently continued,
but Valeria and Conan felt that he had checked an admission he had
considered unwise.
"Five years they dwelt in peace. Then"--Olmec's eyes rested briefly on
the silent woman at his side--"Xotalanc took a woman to wife, a woman
whom both Tecuhltli and old Tolkemec desired. In his madness, Tecuhltli
stole her from her husband. Aye, she went willingly enough. Tolkemec, to
spite Xotalanc, aided Tecuhltli. Xotalanc demanded that she be given
back to him, and the council of the tribe decided that the matter should
be left to the woman. She chose to remain with Tecuhltli. In wrath
Xotalanc sought to take her back by force, and the retainers of the
brothers came to blows in the Great Hall.
"There was much bitterness. Blood was shed on both sides. The quarrel
became a feud, the feud an open war. From the welter three factions
emerged--Tecuhltli, Xotalanc, and Tolkemec. Already, in the days of
peace, they had divided the city between them. Tecuhltli dwelt in the
western quarter of the city, Xotalanc in the eastern, and Tolkemec with
his family by the southern gate.
"Anger and resentment and jealousy blossomed into bloodshed and rape and
murder. Once the sword was drawn there was no turning back; for blood
called for blood, and vengeance followed swift on the heels of atrocity.
Tecuhltli fought with Xotalanc, and Tolkemec aided first one and then
the other, betraying each faction as it fitted his purposes. Tecuhltli
and his people withdrew into the quarter of the western gate, where we
now sit. Xuchotl is built in the shape of an oval. Tecuhltli, which took
its name from its prince, occupies the western end of the oval. The
people blocked up all doors connecting the quarter with the rest of the
city, except one on each floor, which could be defended easily. They
went into the pits below the city and built a wall cutting off the
western end of the catacombs, where lie the bodies of the ancient
Xuchotlans, and of those Tlazitlans slain in the feud. They dwelt as in
a besieged castle, making sorties and forays on their enemies.
"The people of Xotalanc likewise fortified the eastern quarter of the
city, and Tolkemec did likewise with the quarter by the southern gate.
The central part of the city was left bare and uninhabited. Those empty
halls and chambers became a battleground, and a region of brooding
terror.
"Tolkemec warred on both clans. He was a fiend in the form of a human,
worse than Xotalanc. He knew many secrets of the city he never told the
others. From the crypts of the catacombs he plundered the dead of their
grisly secrets--secrets of ancient kings and wizards, long forgotten by
the degenerate Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. But all his magic did not
aid him the night we of Tecuhltli stormed his castle and butchered all
his people. Tolkemec we tortured for many days."
His voice sank to a caressing slur, and a far-away look grew in his
eyes, as if he looked back over the years to a scene which caused him
intense pleasure.
"Aye, we kept the life in him until he screamed for death as for a
bride. At last we took him living from the torture chamber and cast him
into a dungeon for the rats to gnaw as he died. From that dungeon,
somehow, he managed to escape, and dragged himself into the catacombs.
There without doubt he died, for the only way out of the catacombs
beneath Tecuhltli is through Tecuhltli, and he never emerged by that
way. His bones were never found, and the superstitious among our people
swear that his ghost haunts the crypts to this day, wailing among the
bones of the dead. Twelve years ago we butchered the people of Tolkemec,
but the feud raged on between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc, as it will rage
until the last man, the last woman is dead.
"It was fifty years ago that Tecuhltli stole the wife of Xotalanc. Half
a century the feud has endured. I was born in it. All in this chamber,
except Tascela, were born in it. We expect to die in it.
"We are a dying race, even as those Xuchotlans our ancestors slew. When
the feud began there were hundreds in each faction. Now we of Tecuhltli
number only these you see before you, and the men who guard the four
doors: forty in all. How many Xotalancas there are we do not know, but I
doubt if they are much more numerous than we. For fifteen years no
children have been born to us, and we have seen none among the
Xotalancas.
"We are dying, but before we die we will slay as many of the men of
Xotalanc as the gods permit."