the wounded warrior senseless at his feet. Stooping, and hindered not at
all by the struggles and imprecations of his captive, he drew Techotl's
sword from its sheath and stabbed the warrior in the breast. Then
casting aside the weapon he fled on along the corridor. He did not see a
woman's dark face peer cautiously after him from behind a hanging. It
vanished, and presently Techotl groaned and stirred, rose dazedly and
staggered drunkenly away, calling Conan's name.
Olmec hurried on down the corridor, and descended a winding ivory
staircase. He crossed several corridors and halted at last in a broad
chamber whose doors were veiled with heavy tapestries, with one
exception--a heavy bronze door similar to the Door of the Eagle on the
upper floor.
He was moved to rumble, pointing to it: "That is one of the outer doors
of Tecuhltli. For the first time in fifty years it is unguarded. We need
not guard it now, for Xotalanc is no more."
"Thanks to Conan and me, you bloody rogue!" sneered Valeria, trembling
with fury and the shame of physical coercion. "You treacherous dog!
Conan will cut your throat for this!"
Olmec did not bother to voice his belief that Conan's own gullet had
already been severed according to his whispered command. He was too
utterly cynical to be at all interested in her thoughts or opinions. His
flame-lit eyes devoured her, dwelling burningly on the generous expanses
of clear white flesh exposed where her shirt and breeches had been torn
in the struggle.
"Forget Conan," he said thickly. "Olmec is lord of Xuchotl. Xotalanc is
no more. There will be no more fighting. We shall spend our lives in
drinking and love-making. First let us drink!"
He seated himself on an ivory table and pulled her down on his knees,
like a dark-skinned satyr with a white nymph in his arms. Ignoring her
un-nymphlike profanity, he held her helpless with one great arm about
her waist while the other reached across the table and secured a vessel
of wine.
"Drink!" he commanded, forcing it to her lips, as she writhed her head
away.
The liquor slopped over, stinging her lips, splashing down on her naked
breasts.
"Your guest does not like your wine, Olmec," spoke a cool, sardonic
voice.
Olmec stiffened; fear grew in his flaming eyes. Slowly he swung his
great head about and stared at Tascela who posed negligently in the
curtained doorway, one hand on her smooth hip. Valeria twisted herself
about in his iron grip, and when she met the burning eyes of Tascela, a
chill tingled along her supple spine. New experiences were flooding
Valeria's proud soul that night. Recently she had learned to fear a man;
now she knew what it was to fear a woman.
Olmec sat motionless, a gray pallor growing under his swarthy skin.
Tascela brought her other hand from behind her and displayed a small
gold vessel.
"I feared she would not like your wine, Olmec," purred the princess, "so
I brought some of mine, some I brought with me long ago from the shores
of Lake Zuad--do you understand, Olmec?"
Beads of sweat stood out suddenly on Olmec's brow. His muscles relaxed,
and Valeria broke away and put the table between them. But though reason
told her to dart from the room, some fascination she could not
understand held her rigid, watching the scene.
Tascela came toward the seated prince with a swaying, undulating walk
that was mockery in itself. Her voice was soft, slurringly caressing,
but her eyes gleamed. Her slim fingers stroked his beard lightly.
"You are selfish, Olmec," she crooned, smiling. "You would keep our
handsome guest to yourself, though you knew I wished to entertain her.
You are much at fault, Olmec!"
The mask dropped for an instant; her eyes flashed, her face was
contorted and with an appalling show of strength her hand locked
convulsively in his beard and tore out a great handful. This evidence of
unnatural strength was no more terrifying than the momentary baring of
the hellish fury that raged under her bland exterior.
Olmec lurched up with a roar, and stood swaying like a bear, his mighty
hands clenching and unclenching.
"Slut!" His booming voice filled the room. "Witch! She-devil! Tecuhltli
should have slain you fifty years ago! Begone! I have endured too much
from you! This white-skinned wench is mine! Get hence before I slay
you!"
The princess laughed and dashed the blood-stained strands into his face.
Her laughter was less merciful than the ring of flint on steel.
"Once you spoke otherwise, Olmec," she taunted. "Once, in your youth,
you spoke words of love. Aye, you were my lover once, years ago, and
because you loved me, you slept in my arms beneath the enchanted
lotus--and thereby put into my hands the chains that enslaved you. You
know you cannot withstand me. You know I have but to gaze into your
eyes, with the mystic power a priest of Stygia taught me, long ago, and
you are powerless. You remember the night beneath the black lotus that
waved above us, stirred by no worldly breeze; you scent again the
unearthly perfumes that stole and rose like a cloud about you to enslave
you. You cannot fight against me. You are my slave as you were that
night--as you shall be so long as you shall live, Olmec of Xuchotl!"
* * * * *
Her voice had sunk to a murmur like the rippling of a stream running
through starlit darkness. She leaned close to the prince and spread her
long tapering fingers upon his giant breast. His eyes glazed, his great
hands fell limply to his sides.
With a smile of cruel malice, Tascela lifted the vessel and placed it to
his lips.
"Drink!"
Mechanically the prince obeyed. And instantly the glaze passed from his
eyes and they were flooded with fury, comprehension and an awful fear.
His mouth gaped, but no sound issued. For an instant he reeled on
buckling knees, and then fell in a sodden heap on the floor.
His fall jolted Valeria out of her paralysis. She turned and sprang
toward the door, but with a movement that would have shamed a leaping
panther, Tascela was before her. Valeria struck at her with her clenched
fist, and all the power of her supple body behind the blow. It would
have stretched a man senseless on the floor. But with a lithe twist of
her torso, Tascela avoided the blow and caught the pirate's wrist. The
next instant Valeria's left hand was imprisoned, and holding her wrists
together with one hand, Tascela calmly bound them with a cord she drew
from her girdle. Valeria thought she had tasted the ultimate in
humiliation already that night, but her shame at being manhandled by
Olmec was nothing to the sensations that now shook her supple frame.
Valeria had always been inclined to despise the other members of her
sex; and it was overwhelming to encounter another woman who could handle
her like a child. She scarcely resisted at all when Tascela forced her
into a chair and drawing her bound wrists down between her knees,
fastened them to the chair.
Casually stepping over Olmec, Tascela walked to the bronze door and shot
the bolt and threw it open, revealing a hallway without.
"Opening upon this hall," she remarked, speaking to her feminine captive
for the first time, "there is a chamber which in old times was used as a
torture room. When we retired into Tecuhltli, we brought most of the
apparatus with us, but there was one piece too heavy to move. It is
still in working order. I think it will be quite convenient now."
An understanding flame of terror rose in Olmec's eyes. Tascela strode
back to him, bent and gripped him by the hair.
"He is only paralyzed temporarily," she remarked conversationally. "He
can hear, think, and feel--aye, he can feel very well indeed!"
With which sinister observation she started toward the door, dragging
the giant bulk with an ease that made the pirate's eyes dilate. She
passed into the hall and moved down it without hesitation, presently
disappearing with her captive into a chamber that opened into it, and
whence shortly thereafter issued the clank of iron.
Valeria swore softly and tugged vainly, with her legs braced against the
chair. The cords that confined her were apparently unbreakable.
Tascela presently returned alone; behind her a muffled groaning issued
from the chamber. She closed the door but did not bolt it. Tascela was
beyond the grip of habit, as she was beyond the touch of other human
instincts and emotions.
Valeria sat dumbly, watching the woman in whose slim hands, the pirate
realized, her destiny now rested.
Tascela grasped her yellow locks and forced back her head, looking
impersonally down into her face. But the glitter in her dark eyes was
not impersonal.
"I have chosen you for a great honor," she said. "You shall restore the
youth of Tascela. Oh, you stare at that! My appearance is that of youth,
but through my veins creeps the sluggish chill of approaching age, as I
have felt it a thousand times before. I am old, so old I do not remember
my childhood. But I was a girl once, and a priest of Stygia loved me,
and gave me the secret of immortality and youth everlasting. He died,
then--some said by poison. But I dwelt in my palace by the shores of
Lake Zuad and the passing years touched me not. So at last a king of
Stygia desired me, and my people rebelled and brought me to this land.
Olmec called me a princess. I am not of royal blood. I am greater than a
princess. I am Tascela, whose youth your own glorious youth shall
restore."
Valeria's tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She sensed here a
mystery darker than the degeneracy she had anticipated.
The taller woman unbound the Aquilonian's wrists and pulled her to her
feet. It was not fear of the dominant strength that lurked in the
princess' limbs that made Valeria a helpless, quivering captive in her
hands. It was the burning, hypnotic, terrible eyes of Tascela.
_7. He Comes from the Dark_
"Well, I'm a Kushite!"
Conan glared down at the man on the iron rack.
"What the devil are _you_ doing on that thing?"
Incoherent sounds issued from behind the gag and Conan bent and tore it
away, evoking a bellow of fear from the captive; for his action caused
the iron ball to lurch down until it nearly touched the broad breast.
"Be careful, for Set's sake!" begged Olmec.
"What for?" demanded Conan. "Do you think I care what happens to you? I
only wish I had time to stay here and watch that chunk of iron grind
your guts out. But I'm in a hurry. Where's Valeria?"
"Loose me!" urged Olmec, "I will tell you all!"
"Tell me first."
"Never!" The prince's heavy jaws set stubbornly.
"All right." Conan seated himself on a near-by bench. "I'll find her
myself, after you've been reduced to a jelly. I believe I can speed up
that process by twisting my sword-point around in your ear," he added,
extending the weapon experimentally.
"Wait!" Words came in a rush from the captive's ashy lips. "Tascela took
her from me. I've never been anything but a puppet in Tascela's hands."
"Tascela?" snorted Conan, and spat. "Why, the filthy----"
"No, no!" panted Olmec. "It's worse than you think. Tascela is
old--centuries old. She renews her life and her youth by the sacrifice
of beautiful young women. That's one thing that has reduced the clan to
its present state. She will draw the essence of Valeria's life into her
own body, and bloom with fresh vigor and beauty."
"Are the doors locked?" asked Conan, thumbing his sword edge.
"Aye! But I know a way to get into Tecuhltli. Only Tascela and I know,
and she thinks me helpless and you slain. Free me and I swear I will
help you rescue Valeria. Without my help you cannot win into Tecuhltli;
for even if you tortured me into revealing the secret, you couldn't work
it. Let me go, and we will steal on Tascela and kill her before she can
work magic--before she can fix her eyes on us. A knife thrown from
behind will do the work. I should have killed her thus long ago, but I
feared that without her to aid us the Xotalancas would overcome us. She
needed my help, too; that's the only reason she let me live this long.
Now neither needs the other, and one must die. I swear that when we have
slain the witch, you and Valeria shall go free without harm. My people
will obey me when Tascela is dead."
Conan stooped and cut the ropes that held the prince, and Olmec slid
cautiously from under the great ball and rose, shaking his head like a
bull and muttering imprecations as he fingered his lacerated scalp.
Standing shoulder to shoulder the two men presented a formidable picture
of primitive power. Olmec was as tall as Conan, and heavier; but there
was something repellent about the Tlazitlan, something abysmal and
monstrous that contrasted unfavorably with the clean-cut, compact
hardness of the Cimmerian. Conan had discarded the remnants of his
tattered, blood-soaked shirt, and stood with his remarkable muscular
development impressively revealed. His great shoulders were as broad as
those of Olmec, and more cleanly outlined, and his huge breast arched
with a more impressive sweep to a hard waist that lacked the paunchy
thickness of Olmec's midsection. He might have been an image of primal
strength cut out of bronze. Olmec was darker, but not from the burning
of the sun. If Conan was a figure out of the dawn of Time, Olmec was a
shambling, somber shape from the darkness of Time's pre-dawn.
"Lead on," demanded Conan. "And keep ahead of me. I don't trust you any
farther than I can throw a bull by the tail."
Olmec turned and stalked on ahead of him, one hand twitching slightly as
it plucked at his matted beard.
* * * * *
Olmec did not lead Conan back to the bronze door, which the prince
naturally supposed Tascela had locked, but to a certain chamber on the
border of Tecuhltli.
"This secret has been guarded for half a century," he said. "Not even
our own clan knew of it, and the Xotalancas never learned. Tecuhltli
himself built this secret entrance, afterward slaying the slaves who did
the work; for he feared that he might find himself locked out of his own
kingdom some day because of the spite of Tascela, whose passion for him
soon changed to hate. But she discovered the secret, and barred the
hidden door against him one day as he fled back from an unsuccessful
raid, and the Xotalancas took him and flayed him. But once, spying upon
her, I saw her enter Tecuhltli by this route, and so learned the
secret."
He pressed upon a gold ornament in the wall, and a panel swung inward,
disclosing an ivory stair leading upward.
"This stair is built within the wall," said Olmec. "It leads up to a
tower upon the roof, and thence other stairs wind down to the various
chambers. Hasten!"
"After you, comrade!" retorted Conan satirically, swaying his
broadsword as he spoke, and Olmec shrugged his shoulders and stepped
onto the staircase. Conan instantly followed him, and the door shut
behind them. Far above a cluster of fire-jewels made the staircase a
well of dusky dragon-light.
They mounted until Conan estimated that they were above the level of the
fourth floor, and then came out into a cylindrical tower, in the domed
roof of which was set the bunch of fire-jewels that lighted the stair.
Through gold-barred windows, set with unbreakable crystal panes, the
first windows he had seen in Xuchotl, Conan got a glimpse of high
ridges, domes and more towers, looming darkly against the stars. He was
looking across the roofs of Xuchotl.
Olmec did not look through the windows. He hurried down one of the
several stairs that wound down from the tower, and when they had
descended a few feet, this stair changed into a narrow corridor that
wound tortuously on for some distance. It ceased at a steep flight of
steps leading downward. There Olmec paused.
Up from below, muffled, but unmistakable, welled a woman's scream, edged
with fright, fury and shame. And Conan recognized Valeria's voice.
In the swift rage roused by that cry, and the amazement of wondering
what peril could wring such a shriek from Valeria's reckless lips, Conan
forgot Olmec. He pushed past the prince and started down the stair.
Awakening instinct brought him about again, just as Olmec struck with
his great mallet-like fist. The blow, fierce and silent, was aimed at
the base of Conan's brain. But the Cimmerian wheeled in time to receive
the buffet on the side of his neck instead. The impact would have
snapped the vertebræ of a lesser man. As it was, Conan swayed backward,
but even as he reeled he dropped his sword, useless at such close
quarters, and grasped Olmec's extended arm, dragging the prince with him
as he fell. Headlong they went down the steps together, in a revolving
whirl of limbs and heads and bodies. And as they went Conan's iron
fingers found and locked in Olmec's bull-throat.
The barbarian's neck and shoulder felt numb from the sledge-like impact
of Olmec's huge fist, which had carried all the strength of the massive
forearm, thick triceps and great shoulder. But this did not affect his
ferocity to any appreciable extent. Like a bulldog he hung on grimly,
shaken and battered and beaten against the steps as they rolled, until
at last they struck an ivory panel-door at the bottom with such an
impact that they splintered it down its full length and crashed through
its ruins. But Olmec was already dead, for those iron fingers had
crushed out his life and broken his neck as they fell.
* * * * *
Conan rose, shaking the splinters from his great shoulder, blinking
blood and dust out of his eyes.
He was in the great throne room. There were fifteen people in that room
besides himself. The first person he saw was Valeria. A curious black
altar stood before the throne-dais. Ranged about it, seven black candles
in golden candlesticks sent up oozing spirals of thick green smoke,
disturbingly scented. These spirals united in a cloud near the ceiling,
forming a smoky arch above the altar. On that altar lay Valeria, stark
naked, her white flesh gleaming in shocking contrast to the glistening
ebon stone. She was not bound. She lay at full length, her arms
stretched out above her head to their fullest extent. At the head of the
altar knelt a young man, holding her wrists firmly. A young woman knelt
at the other end of the altar, grasping her ankles. Between them she
could neither rise nor move.
Eleven men and women of Tecuhltli knelt dumbly in a semicircle, watching
the scene with hot, lustful eyes.
On the ivory throne-seat Tascela lolled. Bronze bowls of incense rolled
their spirals about her; the wisps of smoke curled about her naked limbs
like caressing fingers. She could not sit still; she squirmed and
shifted about with sensuous abandon, as if finding pleasure in the
contact of the smooth ivory with her sleek flesh.
The crash of the door as it broke beneath the impact of the hurtling
bodies caused no change in the scene. The kneeling men and women merely
glanced incuriously at the corpse of their prince and at the man who
rose from the ruins of the door, then swung their eyes greedily back to
the writhing white shape on the black altar. Tascela looked insolently
at him, and sprawled back on her seat, laughing mockingly.
"Slut!" Conan saw red. His hands clenched into iron hammers as he
started for her. With his first step something clanged loudly and steel
bit savagely into his leg. He stumbled and almost fell, checked in his
headlong stride. The jaws of an iron trap had closed on his leg, with
teeth that sank deep and held. Only the ridged muscles of his calf saved
the bone from being splintered. The accursed thing had sprung out of the
smoldering floor without warning. He saw the slots now, in the floor
where the jaws had lain, perfectly camouflaged.
"Fool!" laughed Tascela. "Did you think I would not guard against your
possible return? Every door in this chamber is guarded by such traps.
Stand there and watch now, while I fulfill the destiny of your handsome
friend! Then I will decide your own."
Conan's hand instinctively sought his belt, only to encounter an empty
scabbard. His sword was on the stair behind him. His poniard was lying
back in the forest, where the dragon had torn it from his jaw. The steel
teeth in his leg were like burning coals, but the pain was not as savage
as the fury that seethed in his soul. He was trapped, like a wolf. If he
had had his sword he would have hewn off his leg and crawled across the
floor to slay Tascela. Valeria's eyes rolled toward him with mute
appeal, and his own helplessness sent red waves of madness surging
through his brain.
Dropping on the knee of his free leg, he strove to get his fingers
between the jaws of the trap, to tear them apart by sheer strength.
Blood started from beneath his finger nails, but the jaws fitted close
about his leg in a circle whose segments jointed perfectly, contracted
until there was no space between his mangled flesh and the fanged iron.
The sight of Valeria's naked body added flame to the fire of his rage.
Tascela ignored him. Rising languidly from her seat she swept the ranks
of her subjects with a searching glance, and asked: "Where are Xamec,
Zlanath and Tachic?"
"They did not return from the catacombs, princess," answered a man.
"Like the rest of us, they bore the bodies of the slain into the crypts,
but they have not returned. Perhaps the ghost of Tolkemec took them."
"Be silent, fool!" she ordered harshly. "The ghost is a myth."
She came down from her dais, playing with a thin gold-hilted dagger. Her
eyes burned like nothing on the hither side of hell. She paused beside
the altar and spoke in the tense stillness.
"Your life shall make me young, white woman!" she said. "I shall lean
upon your bosom and place my lips over yours, and slowly--ah,
slowly!--sink this blade through your heart, so that your life, fleeing
your stiffening body, shall enter mine, making me bloom again with
youth and with life everlasting!"
Slowly, like a serpent arching toward its victim, she bent down through
the writhing smoke, closer and closer over the now motionless woman who
stared up into her glowing dark eyes--eyes that grew larger and deeper,
blazing like black moons in the swirling smoke.
The kneeling people gripped their hands and held their breath, tense for
the bloody climax, and the only sound was Conan's fierce panting as he
strove to tear his leg from the trap.
All eyes were glued on the altar and the white figure there; the crash
of a thunderbolt could hardly have broken the spell, yet it was only a
low cry that shattered the fixity of the scene and brought all whirling
about--a low cry, yet one to make the hair stand up stiffly on the
scalp. They looked, and they saw.
Framed in the door to the left of the dais stood a nightmare figure. It
was a man, with a tangle of white hair and a matted white beard that
fell over his breast. Rags only partly covered his gaunt frame,
revealing half-naked limbs strangely unnatural in appearance. The skin
was not like that of a normal human. There was a suggestion of
_scaliness_ about it, as if the owner had dwelt long under conditions
almost antithetical to those conditions under which human life
ordinarily thrives. And there was nothing at all human about the eyes
that blazed from the tangle of white hair. They were great gleaming
disks that stared unwinkingly, luminous, whitish, and without a hint of
normal emotion or sanity. The mouth gaped, but no coherent words
issued--only a high-pitched tittering.
* * * * *
"Tolkemec!" whispered Tascela, livid, while the others crouched in
speechless horror. "No myth, then, no ghost! Set! You have dwelt for
twelve years in darkness! Twelve years among the bones of the dead! What
grisly food did you find? What mad travesty of life did you live, in the
stark blackness of that eternal night? I see now why Xamec and Zlanath
and Tachic did not return from the catacombs--and never will return. But
why have you waited so long to strike? Were you seeking something, in
the pits? Some secret weapon you knew was hidden there? And have you
found it at last?"
That hideous tittering was Tolkemec's only reply, as he bounded into the
room with a long leap that carried him over the secret trap before the
door--by chance, or by some faint recollection of the ways of Xuchotl.
He was not mad, as a man is mad. He had dwelt apart from humanity so
long that he was no longer human. Only an unbroken thread of memory
embodied in hate and the urge for vengeance had connected him with the
humanity from which he had been cut off, and held him lurking near the
people he hated. Only that thin string had kept him from racing and
prancing off for ever into the black corridors and realms of the
subterranean world he had discovered, long ago.