Conan The Warrior Series:The Slithering Shadow by Robert E. Howard

1

The desert shimmered in the heat waves. Conan the Cimmerian stared out
over the aching desolation and involuntarily drew the back of his
powerful hand over his blackened lips. He stood like a bronze image in
the sand, apparently impervious to the murderous sun, though his only
garment was a silk loincloth, girdled by a wide gold-buckled belt
from which hung a saber and a broad-bladed poniard. On his clean-cut
limbs were evidences of scarcely healed wounds.

At his feet rested a girl, one white arm clasping his knee, against
which her blond head drooped. Her white skin contrasted with his hard
bronzed limbs; her short silken tunic, low-necked and sleeveless,
girdled at the waist, emphasized rather than concealed her lithe
figure.

Conan shook his head, blinking. The sun's glare half blinded him. He
lifted a small canteen from his belt and shook it, scowling at the
faint splashing within.

The girl moved wearily, whimpering.

"Oh, Conan, we shall die here! I am so thirsty!"

The Cimmerian growled wordlessly, glaring truculently at the
surrounding waste, with outthrust jaw, and blue eyes smoldering
savagely from under his black tousled mane, as if the desert were a
tangible enemy.

He stooped and put the canteen to the girl's lips.

"Drink till I tell you to stop, Natala," he commanded.

She drank with little panting gasps, and he did not check her. Only
when the canteen was empty did she realize that he had deliberately
allowed her to drink all their water supply, little enough that it
was.

Tears sprang to her eyes. "Oh, Conan," she wailed, wringing her hands,
"why did you let me drink it all? I did not know--now there is none
for you!"

"Hush," he growled. "Don't waste your strength in weeping."

Straightening, he threw the canteen from him.

"Why did you do that?" she whispered.

He did not reply, standing motionless and immobile, his fingers
closing slowly about the hilt of his saber. He was not looking at the
girl; his fierce eyes seemed to plumb the mysterious purple hazes of
the distance.

Endowed with all the barbarian's ferocious love of life and instinct
to live, Conan the Cimmerian yet knew that he had reached the end of
his trail. He had not come to the limits of his endurance, but he knew
another day under the merciless sun in those waterless wastes would
bring him down. As for the girl, she had suffered enough. Better a
quick painless sword-stroke than the lingering agony that faced him.
Her thirst was temporarily quenched; it was a false mercy to let her
suffer until delirium and death brought relief. Slowly he slid the
saber from its sheath.

He halted suddenly, stiffening. Far out on the desert to the south,
something glimmered through the heat waves.

At first he thought it was a phantom, one of the mirages which had
mocked and maddened him in that accursed desert. Shading his sun-
dazzled eyes, he made out spires and minarets, and gleaming walls. He
watched it grimly, waiting for it to fade and vanish. Natala had
ceased to sob; she struggled to her knees and followed his gaze.

"Is it a city, Conan?" she whispered, too fearful to hope. "Or is it
but a shadow?"

The Cimmerian did not reply for a space. He closed and opened his eyes
several times; he looked away, then back. The city remained where he
had first seen it.

"The devil knows," he grunted. "It's worth a try, though."

He thrust the saber back in its sheath. Stooping, he lifted Natala in
his mighty arms as though she had been an infant. She resisted weakly.

"Don't waste your strength carrying me, Conan," she pleaded. "I can
walk."

"The ground gets rockier here," he answered. "You would soon wear your
sandals to shreds," glancing at her soft green footwear. "Besides, if
we are to reach that city at all, we must do it quickly, and I can
make better time this way."

The chance for life had lent fresh vigor and resilience to the
Cimmerian's steely thews. He strode out across the sandy waste as if
he had just begun the journey. A barbarian of barbarians, the vitality
and endurance of the wild were his, granting him survival where
civilized men would have perished.

He and the girl were, so far as he knew, the sole survivors of Prince
Almuric's army, that mad motley horde which, following the defeated
rebel prince of Koth, swept through the Lands of Shem like a
devastating sandstorm and drenched the outlands of Stygia with blood.
With a Stygian host on its heels, it had cut its way through the black
kingdom of Kush, only to be annihilated on the edge of the southern
desert. Conan likened it in his mind to a great torrent, dwindling
gradually as it rushed southward, to run dry at last in the sands of
the naked desert. The bones of its members--mercenaries, outcasts,
broken men, outlaws--lay strewn from the Kothic uplands to the dunes
of the wilderness.

From that final slaughter, when the Stygians and the Kushites closed
in on the trapped remnants, Conan had cut his way clear and fled on a
camel with the girl. Behind them the land swarmed with enemies; the
only way open to them was the desert to the south. Into those menacing
depths they had plunged.

The girl was Brythunian, whom Conan had found in the slave market of a
stormed Shemite city, and appropriated. She had had nothing to say in
the matter, but her new position was so far superior to the lot of any
Hyborian woman in a Shemitish seraglio, that she accepted it
thankfully. So she had shared in the adventures of Almuric's damned
horde.

For days they had fled into the desert, pursued so far by Stygian
horsemen that when they shook off the pursuit, they dared not turn
back. They pushed on, seeking water, until the camel died. Then they
went on foot. For the past few days their suffering had been intense.
Conan had shielded Natala all he could, and the rough life of the camp
had given her more stamina and strength than the average woman
possesses; but even so, she was not far from collapse.

The sun beat fiercely on Conan's tangled black mane. Waves of
dizziness and nausea rose in his brain, but he set his teeth and
strode on unwaveringly. He was convinced that the city was a reality
and not a mirage. What they would find there he had no idea. The
inhabitants might be hostile. Nevertheless it was a fighting chance,
and that was as much as he had ever asked.

The sun was nigh to setting when they halted in front of the massive
gate, grateful for the shade. Conan stood Natala on her feet, and
stretched his aching arms. Above them the walls towered some thirty
feet in height, composed of a smooth greenish substance that shone
almost like glass. Conan scanned the parapets, expecting to be
challenged, but saw no one. Impatiently he shouted, and banged on the
gate with his saber hilt, but only the hollow echoes mocked him. Natala
cringed close to him, frightened by the silence. Conan tried the
portal, and stepped back, drawing his saber, as it swung silently
inward. Natala stifled a cry.

"Oh, look, Conan!"

Just inside the gate lay a human body. Conan glared at it narrowly,
then looked beyond it. He saw a wide open expanse, like a court,
bordered by the arched doorways of houses composed of the same
greenish material as the outer walls. These edifices were lofty and
imposing, pinnacled with shining domes and minarets. There was no sign
of life among them. In the center of the court rose the square curb of
a well, and the sight stung Conan, whose mouth felt caked with dry
dust. Taking Natala's wrist he drew her through the gate, and closed
it behind them.

"Is he dead?" she whispered, shrinkingly indicating the man who lay
limply before the gate. The body was that of a tall powerful
individual, apparently in his prime; the skin was yellow, the eyes
slightly slanted; otherwise the man differed little from the Hyborian
type. He was clad in high-strapped sandals and a tunic of purple silk,
and a short sword in a cloth-of-gold scabbard hung from his girdle.
Conan felt his flesh. It was cold. There was no sign of life in the
body.

"Not a wound on him," grunted the Cimmerian, "but he's dead as Almuric
with forty Stygian arrows in him. In Crom's name, let's see to the
well! If there's water in it, we'll drink, dead men or no."

There was water in the well, but they did not drink of it. Its level
was a good fifty feet below the curb, and there was nothing to draw it
up with. Conan cursed blackly, maddened by the sight of the stuff just
out of his reach, and turned to look for some means of obtaining it.
Then a scream from Natala brought him about.

The supposedly dead man was rushing upon him, eyes blazing with
indisputable life, his short sword gleaming in his hand. Conan cursed
amazedly, but wasted no time in conjecture. He met the hurtling
attacker with a slashing cut of his saber that sheared through flesh
and bone. The fellow's head thudded on the flags; the body staggered
drunkenly, an arch of blood jetting from the severed jugular; then it
fell heavily.

Conan glared down, swearing softly.

"This fellow is no deader now than he was a few minutes agone. Into
what madhouse have we strayed?"

Natala, who had covered her eyes with her hands at the sight, peeked
between her fingers and shook with fear.

"Oh, Conan, will the people of the city not kill us, because of this?"

"Well," he growled, "this creature would have killed us if I hadn't
lopped off his head."

He glanced at the archways that gaped blankly from the green walls
above them. He saw no hint of movement, heard no sound.

"I don't think any one saw us," he muttered. "I'll hide the evidence--"

He lifted the limp carcass by its sword belt with one hand, and
grasping the head by its long hair in the other, he half carried, half
dragged the ghastly remains over to the well.

"Since we can't drink this water," he gritted vindictively, "I'll see
that nobody else enjoys drinking it. Curse such a well, anyway!" He
heaved the body over the curb and let it drop, tossing the head after
it. A dull splash sounded far beneath.

"There's blood on the stones," whispered Natala.

"There'll be more unless I find water soon," growled the Cimmerian,
his short store of patience about exhausted. The girl had almost
forgotten her thirst and hunger in her fear, but not Conan.

"We'll go into one of these doors," he said. "Surely we'll find people
after awhile."

"Oh, Conan!" she wailed, snuggling up as close to him as she could.
"I'm afraid! This is a city of ghosts and dead men! Let us go back
into the desert! Better to die there, than to face these terrors!"

"We'll go into the desert when they throw us off the walls," he
snarled. "There's water somewhere in this city, and I'll find it, if I
have to kill every man in it."

"But what if they come to life again?" she whispered.

"Then I'll keep killing them until they stay dead!" he snapped. "Come
on! That doorway is as good as another! Stay behind me, but don't run
unless I tell you to."

She murmured a faint assent and followed him so closely that she
stepped on his heels, to his irritation. Dusk had fallen, filling the
strange city with purple shadows. They entered the open doorway, and
found themselves in a wide chamber, the walls of which were hung with
velvet tapestries, worked in curious designs. Floor, walls and ceiling
were of the green glassy stone, the walls decorated with gold frieze-
work. Furs and satin cushions littered the floor. Several doorways let
into other rooms. They passed through, and traversed several chambers,
counterparts of the first. They saw no one, but the Cimmerian grunted
suspiciously.

"Some one was here not long ago. This couch is still warm from contact
with a human body. That silk cushion bears the imprint of some one's
hips. Then there's a faint scent of perfume lingering in the air."

A weird unreal atmosphere hung over all. Traversing this dim silent
palace was like an opium dream. Some of the chambers were unlighted,
and these they avoided. Others were bathed in a soft weird light that
seemed to emanate from jewels set in the walls in fantastic designs.
Suddenly, as they passed into one of these illumined chambers, Natala
cried out and clutched her companion's arm. With a curse he wheeled,
glaring for an enemy, bewildered because he saw none.

"What's the matter?" he snarled. "If you ever grab my sword arm again,
I'll skin you. Do you want me to get my throat cut? What were you
yelling about?"

"Look there," she quavered, pointing.

Conan grunted. On a table of polished ebony stood golden vessels,
apparently containing food and drink. The room was unoccupied.

"Well, whoever this feast is prepared for," he growled, "he'll have to
look elsewhere tonight."

"Dare we eat it, Conan?" ventured the girl nervously. "The people
might come upon us, and--"

"Lir an mannanan mac lira," he swore, grabbing her by the nape of her
neck and thrusting her into a gilded chair at the end of the table
with no great ceremony. "We starve and you make objections! Eat!"

He took the chair at the other end, and seizing a jade goblet, emptied
it at a gulp. It contained a crimson winelike liquor of a peculiar
tang, unfamiliar to him, but it was like nectar to his parched gullet.
His thirst allayed, he attacked the food before him with rare gusto.
It too was strange to him: exotic fruits and unknown meats. The
vessels were of exquisite workmanship, and there were golden knives
and forks as well. These Conan ignored, grasping the meat joints in
his fingers and tearing them with his strong teeth. The Cimmerian's
table manners were rather wolfish at any time. His civilized companion
ate more daintily, but just as ravenously. It occurred to Conan that
the food might be poisoned, but the thought did not lessen his
appetite; he preferred to die of poisoning rather than starvation.

His hunger satisfied, he leaned back with a deep sigh of relief. That
there were humans in that silent city was evidenced by the fresh food,
and perhaps every dark corner concealed a lurking enemy. But he felt
no apprehension on that score, having a large confidence in his own
fighting ability. He began to feel sleepy, and considered the idea of
stretching himself on a near-by couch for a nap.

Not so Natala. She was no longer hungry and thirsty, but she felt no
desire to sleep. Her lovely eyes were very wide indeed as she timidly
glanced at the doorways, boundaries of the unknown. The silence and
mystery of the strange place preyed on her. The chamber seemed larger,
the table longer than she had first noticed, and she realized that she
was farther from her grim protector than she wished to be. Rising
quickly, she went around the table and seated herself on his knee,
glancing nervously at the arched doorways. Some were lighted and some
were not, and it was at the unlighted ones she gazed longest.

"We have eaten, drunk and rested," she urged. "Let us leave this
place, Conan. It's evil. I can feel it."

"Well, we haven't been harmed so far," he began, when a soft but
sinister rustling brought him about. Thrusting the girl off his knee
he rose with the quick ease of a panther, drawing his saber, facing
the doorway from which the sound had seemed to come. It was not
repeated, and he stole forward noiselessly, Natala following with her
heart in her mouth. She knew he suspected peril. His outthrust head
was sunk between his giant shoulders, he glided forward in a half
crouch, like a stalking tiger. He made no more noise than a tiger
would have made.

At the doorway he halted, Natala peering fearfully from behind him.
There was no light in the room, but it was partially illuminated by
the radiance behind them, which streamed across it into yet another
chamber. And in this chamber a man lay on a raised dais. The soft
light bathed him, and they saw he was a counterpart of the man Conan
had killed before the outer gate, except that his garments were
richer, and ornamented with jewels which twinkled in the uncanny
light. Was he dead, or merely sleeping? Again came that faint sinister
sound, as if some one had thrust aside a hanging. Conan drew back,
drawing the clinging Natala with him. He clapped his hand over her
mouth just in time to check her shriek.

From where they now stood, they could no longer see the dais, but they
could see the shadow it cast on the wall behind it. And now another
shadow moved across the wall: a huge shapeless black blot. Conan felt
his hair prickle curiously as he watched. Distorted though it might
be, he felt that he had never seen a man or beast which cast such a
shadow. He was consumed with curiosity, but some instinct held him
frozen in his tracks. He heard Natala's quick panting gasps as she
stared with dilated eyes. No other sound disturbed the tense
stillness. The great shadow engulfed that of the dais. For a long
instant only its black bulk was thrown on the smooth wall. Then slowly
it receded, and once more the dais was etched darkly against the wall.
But the sleeper was no longer upon it.

An hysterical gurgle rose in Natala's throat, and Conan gave her an
admonitory shake. He was aware of an iciness in his own veins. Human
foes he did not fear; anything understandable, however grisly, caused
no tremors in his broad breast. But this was beyond his ken.

After a while, however, his curiosity conquered his uneasiness, and he
moved out into the unlighted chamber again, ready for anything.
Looking into the other room, he saw it was empty. The dais stood as he
had first seen it, except that no bejeweled human lay thereon. Only on
its silken covering shone a single drop of blood, like a great crimson
gem. Natala saw it and gave a low choking cry, for which Conan did not
punish her. Again he felt the icy hand of fear. On that dais a man had
lain; something had crept into the chamber and carried him away. What
that something was, Conan had no idea, but an aura of unnatural horror
hung over those dim-lit chambers.

He was ready to depart. Taking Natala's hand, he turned back, then
hesitated. Somewhere back among the chambers they had traversed, he
heard the sound of a footfall. A human foot, bare or softly shod, had
made that sound, and Conan, with the wariness of a wolf, turned
quickly aside. He believed he could come again into the outer court,
and yet avoid the room from which the sound had appeared to come.

But they had not crossed the first chamber on their new route, when
the rustle of a silken hanging brought them about suddenly. Before a
curtained alcove stood a man eyeing them intently.

He was exactly like the others they had encountered: tall, well made,
clad in purple garments, with a jeweled girdle. There was neither
surprize nor hostility in his amber eyes. They were dreamy as a lotus-
eater's. He did not draw the short sword at his side. After a tense
moment he spoke, in a far-away detached tone, and a language his
hearers did not understand.

On a venture Conan replied in Stygian, and the stranger answered in
the same tongue: "Who are you?"

"I am Conan, a Cimmerian," answered the barbarian. "This is Natala, of
Brythunia. What city is this?"

The man did not at once reply. His dreamy sensuous gaze rested on
Natala, and he drawled, "Of all my rich visions, this is the
strangest! Oh, girl of the golden locks, from what far dreamland do
you come? From Andarra, or Tothra, or Kuth of the star-girdle?"

"What madness is this?" growled the Cimmerian harshly, not relishing
the man's words or manner.

The other did not heed him.

"I have dreamed more gorgeous beauties," he murmured; "lithe women
with hair dusky as night, and dark eyes of unfathomed mystery. But
your skin is white as milk, your eyes as clear as dawn, and there is
about you a freshness and daintiness alluring as honey. Come to my
couch, little dream-girl!"

He advanced and reached for her, and Conan struck aside his hand with
a force that might have broken his arm. The man reeled back, clutching
the numbed member, his eyes clouding.

"What rebellion of ghosts is this?" he muttered. "Barbarian, I command
ye--begone! Fade! Dissipate! Fade! Vanish!"

"I'll vanish your head from your shoulders!" snarled the infuriated
Cimmerian, his saber gleaming in his hand. "Is this the welcome you
give strangers? By Crom, I'll drench these hangings in blood!"

The dreaminess had faded from the other's eyes, to be replaced by a
look of bewilderment.

"Thog!" he ejaculated. "You are real! Whence come you? Who are you?
What do you in Xuthal?"

"We came from the desert," Conan growled. "We wandered into the city
at dusk, famishing. We found a feast set for some one, and we ate it.
I have no money to pay for it. In my country, no starving man is
denied food, but you civilized people must have your recompense--if
you are like all I ever met. We have done no harm and we were just
leaving. By Crom, I do not like this place, where dead men rise, and
sleeping men vanish into the bellies of shadows!"

The man started violently at the last comment, his yellow face turning
ashy.

"What do you say? Shadows? Into the bellies of shadows?"

"Well," answered the Cimmerian cautiously, "whatever it is that takes
a man from a sleeping dais and leaves only a spot of blood."

"You have seen? You have seen?" The man was shaking like a leaf; his
voice cracked on the high-pitched note.

"Only a man sleeping on a dais, and a shadow that engulfed him,"
answered Conan.

The effect of his words on the other was horrifying. With an awful
scream the man turned and rushed from the chamber. In his blind haste
he caromed from the side of the door, righted himself, and fled
through the adjoining chambers, still screaming at the top of his
voice. Amazed, Conan stared after him, the girl trembling as she
clutched the giant's arm. They could no longer see the flying figure,
but they still heard his frightful screams, dwindling in the distance,
and echoing as from vaulted roofs. Suddenly one cry, louder than the
others, rose and broke short, followed by blank silence.

"Crom!"

Conan wiped the perspiration from his forehead with a hand that was
not entirely steady.

"Surely this is a city of the mad! Let's get out of here, before we
meet other madmen!"

"It is all a nightmare!" whimpered Natala. "We are dead and damned! We
died out on the desert and are in hell! We are disembodied spirits--
ow!" Her yelp was induced by a resounding spank from Conan's open
hand.

"You're no spirit when a pat makes you yell like that," he commented,
with the grim humor which frequently manifested itself at inopportune
times. "We are alive, though we may not be if we loiter in this devil-
haunted pile. Come!"

They had traversed but a single chamber when again they stopped short.
Some one or something was approaching. They faced the doorway whence
the sounds came, waiting for they knew not what. Conan's nostrils
widened, and his eyes narrowed. He caught the faint scent of the
perfume he had noticed earlier in the night. A figure framed itself in
the doorway. Conan swore under his breath; Natala's red lips opened
wide.

It was a woman who stood there staring at them in wonder. She was
tall, lithe, shaped like a goddess; clad in a narrow girdle crusted
with jewels. A burnished mass of night-black hair set off the
whiteness of her ivory body. Her dark eyes, shaded by long dusky
lashes, were deep with sensuous mystery. Conan caught his breath at
her beauty, and Natala stared with dilated eyes. The Cimmerian had
never seen such a woman; her facial outline was Stygian, but she was
not dusky-skinned like the Stygian women he had known; her limbs were
like alabaster.

But when she spoke, in a deep rich musical voice, it was in the
Stygian tongue.

"Who are you? What do you in Xuthal? Who is that girl?"

"Who are you?" bluntly countered Conan, who quickly wearied of
answering questions.

"I am Thalis the Stygian," she replied. "Are you mad, to come here?"

"I've been thinking I must be," he growled. "By Crom, if I am sane,
I'm out of place here, because these people are all maniacs. We
stagger in from the desert, dying of thirst and hunger, and we come
upon a dead man who tries to stab me in the back. We enter a palace
rich and luxuriant, yet apparently empty. We find a meal set, but with
no feasters. Then we see a shadow devour a sleeping man--" He watched
her narrowly and saw her change color slightly. "Well?"

"Well what?" she demanded, apparently regaining control of herself.

"I was just waiting for you to run through the rooms howling like a
wild woman," he answered. "The man I told about the shadow did."

She shrugged her slim ivory shoulders. "That was the screams I heard,
then. Well, to every man his fate, and it's foolish to squeal like a
rat in a trap. When Thog wants me, he will come for me."

"Who is Thog?" demanded Conan suspiciously.

She gave him a long appraising stare that brought color to Natala's
face and made her bite her small red lip.

"Sit down on that divan and I will tell you," she said. "But first
tell me your names."

"I am Conan, a Cimmerian, and this is Natala, a daughter of
Brythunia," he answered. "We are refugees of an army destroyed on the
borders of Kush. But I am not desirous of sitting down, where black
shadows might steal up on my back."

With a light musical laugh, she seated herself, stretching out her
supple limbs with studied abandon.

"Be at ease," she advised. "If Thog wishes you, he will take you,
wherever you are. That man you mentioned, who screamed and ran--did
you not hear him give one great cry, and then fall silent? In his
frenzy, he must have run full into that which he sought to escape. No
man can avoid his fate."

Conan grunted noncommittally, but he sat down on the edge of a couch,
his saber across his knees, his eyes wandering suspiciously about the
chamber. Natala nestled against him, clutching him jealously, her legs
tucked up under her. She eyed the stranger woman with suspicion and
resentment. She felt small and dust-stained and insignificant before
this glamorous beauty, and she could not mistake the look in the dark
eyes which feasted on every detail of the bronzed giant's physique.

"What is this place, and who are these people?" demanded Conan.

"This city is called Xuthal; it is very ancient. It is built over an
oasis, which the founders of Xuthal found in their wanderings.They came from the east, so long ago that not even their descendants
remember the age.”

"Surely there are not many of them; these palaces seem empty."

"No; and yet more than you might think. The city is really one great
palace, with every building inside the walls closely connected with
the others. You might walk among these chambers for hours and see no
one. At other times, you would meet hundreds of the inhabitants."

"How is that?" Conan inquired uneasily; this savored too strongly of
sorcery for comfort.

"Much of the time these people lie in sleep. Their dream-life is as
important--and to them as real--as their waking life. You have heard
of the black lotus? In certain pits of the city it grows. Through the
ages they have cultivated it, until, instead of death, its juice
induces dreams, gorgeous and fantastic. In these dreams they spend
most of their time. Their lives are vague, erratic, and without plan.
They dream, they wake, drink, love, eat and dream again. They seldom
finish anything they begin, but leave it half completed and sink back
again into the slumber of the black lotus. That meal you found--
doubtless one awoke, felt the urge of hunger, prepared the meal for
himself, then forgot about it and wandered away to dream again."

"Where do they get their food?" interrupted Conan. "I saw no fields or
vineyards outside the city. Have they orchards and cattle-pens within
the walls?"

She shook her head. "They manufacture their own food out of the primal
elements. They are wonderful scientists, when they are not drugged
with their dream-flower. Their ancestors were mental giants, who built
this marvelous city in the desert, and though the race became slaves
to their curious passions, some of their wonderful knowledge still
remains. Have you wondered about these lights? They are jewels, fused
with radium. You rub them with your thumb to make them glow, and rub
them again, the opposite way, to extinguish them. That is but a single
example of their science. But much they have forgotten. They take
little interest in waking life, choosing to lie most of the time in
deathlike sleep."

"Then the dead man at the gate--" began Conan.

"Was doubtless slumbering. Sleepers of the lotus are like the dead.
Animation is apparently suspended. It is impossible to detect the
slightest sign of life. The spirit has left the body and is roaming at
will through other, exotic worlds. The man at the gate was a good
example of the irresponsibility of these people's lives. He was
guarding the gate, where custom decrees a watch be kept, though no
enemy has ever advanced across the desert. In other parts of the city
you would find other guards, generally sleeping as soundly as the man
at the gate."

Conan mulled over this for a space.

"Where are the people now?"

"Scattered in different parts of the city; lying on couches, on silken
divans, in cushion-littered alcoves, on fur-covered daises; all wrapt
in the shining veil of dreams."

Conan felt the skin twitch between his massive shoulders. It was not
soothing to think of hundreds of people lying cold and still
throughout the tapestried palaces, their glassy eyes turned unseeingly
upward. He remembered something else.

"What of the thing that stole through the chambers and carried away
the man on the dais?"

A shudder twitched her ivory limbs.

"That was Thog, the Ancient, the god of Xuthal, who dwells in the
sunken dome in the center of the city. He has always dwelt in Xuthal.
Whether he came here with the ancient founders, or was here when they
built the city, none knows. But the people of Xuthal worship him.
Mostly he sleeps below the city, but sometimes at irregular intervals
he grows hungry, and then he steals through the secret corridors and
the dim-lit chambers, seeking prey. Then none is safe."

Natala moaned with terror and clasped Conan's mighty neck as if to
resist an effort to drag her from her protector's side.

"Crom!" he ejaculated aghast. "You mean to tell me these people lie
down calmly and sleep, with this demon crawling among them?"

"It is only occasionally that he is hungry," she repeated. "A god must
have his sacrifices. When I was a child in Stygia, the people lived
under the shadow of the priests. None ever knew when he or she would
be seized and dragged to the altar. What difference whether the
priests give a victim to the gods, or the god comes for his own
victim?"

"Such is not the custom of my people," Conan growled, "nor of Natala's
either. The Hyborians do not sacrifice humans to their god, Mitra, and
as for my people--by Crom, I'd like to see a priest try to drag a
Cimmerian to the altar! There'd be blood spilt, but not as the priest
intended."

"You are a barbarian," laughed Thalis, but with a glow in her luminous
eyes. "Thog is very ancient and very terrible."

"These folk must be either fools or heroes," grunted Conan, "to lie
down and dream their idiotic dreams, knowing they might awaken in his
belly."

She laughed. "They know nothing else. For untold generations Thog has
preyed on them. He has been one of the factors which have reduced
their numbers from thousands to hundreds. A few more generations and
they will be extinct, and Thog must either fare forth into the world
for new prey, or retire to the underworld whence he came so long ago.

"They realize their ultimate doom, but they are fatalists, incapable
of resistance or escape. Not one of the present generation has been
out of sight of these walls. There is an oasis a day's march to the
south--I have seen it on the old maps their ancestors drew on
parchment--but no man of Xuthal has visited it for three generations,
much less made any attempt to explore the fertile grasslands which the
maps show lying another day's march beyond it. They are a fast-fading
race, drowned in lotus dreams, stimulating their waking hours by means
of the golden wine which heals wounds, prolongs life, and invigorates
the most sated debauchee.

"Yet they cling to life, and fear the deity they worship. You saw how
one went mad at the knowledge that Thog was roving the palaces. I have
seen the whole city screaming and tearing its hair, and running
frenziedly out of the gates, to cower outside the walls and draw lots
to see which would be bound and flung back through the arched doorways
to satisfy Thog's lust and hunger. Were they not all slumbering now,
the word of his coming would send them raving and shrieking again
through the outer gates."

"Oh, Conan!" begged Natala hysterically. "Let us flee!"

"In good time," muttered Conan, his eyes burning on Thalis ivory
limbs. "What are you, a Stygian woman, doing here?"

"I came here when a young girl," she answered, leaning lithely back
against the velvet divan, and intertwining her slender fingers behind
her dusky head. "I am the daughter of a king, no common woman, as you
can see by my skin, which is as white as that of your little blond
there. I was abducted by a rebel prince, who, with an army of Kushite
bowmen, pushed southward into the wilderness, searching for a land he
could make his own. He and all his warriors perished in the desert,
but one, before he died, placed me on a camel and walked beside it
until he dropped and died in his tracks. The beast wandered on, and I
finally passed into delirium from thirst and hunger, and awakened in
this city. They told me I had been seen from the walls, early in the
dawn, lying senseless beside a dead camel. They went forth and brought
me in and revived me with their wonderful golden wine. And only the
sight of a woman would have led them to have ventured that far from
their walls.

"They were naturally much interested in me, especially the men. As I
could not speak their language, they learned to speak mine. They are
very quick and able of intellect; they learned my language long before
I learned theirs. But they were more interested in me than in my
language. I have been, and am, the only thing for which a man of them
will forgo his lotus-dreams for a space."

She laughed wickedly, flashing her audacious eyes meaningly at Conan.

"Of course the women are jealous of me," she continued tranquilly.
"They are handsome enough in their yellow-skinned way, but they are
dreamy and uncertain as the men, and these latter like me not only for
my beauty, but for my reality. I am no dream! Though I have dreamed
the dreams of the lotus, I am a normal woman, with earthly emotions
and desires. With such these moon-eyed yellow women can not compare.

"That is why it would be better for you to cut that girl's throat with
your saber, before the men of Xuthal waken and catch her. They will
put her through paces she never dreamed of! She is too soft to endure
what I have thrived on. I am a daughter of Luxur, and before I had
known fifteen summers I had been led through the temples of Derketo,
the dusky goddess, and had been initiated into the mysteries. Not that
my first years in Xuthal were years of unmodified pleasure! The people
of Xuthal have forgotten more than the priestesses of Derketo ever
dreamed. They live only for sensual joys. Dreaming or waking, their
lives are filled with exotic ecstasies, beyond the ken of ordinary
men."

"Damned degenerates!" growled Conan.

"It is all in the point of view," smiled Thalis lazily.

"Well," he decided, "we're merely wasting time. I can see this is no
place for ordinary mortals. We'll be gone before your morons awake, or
Thog comes to devour us. I think the desert would be kinder."

Natala, whose blood had curdled in her veins at Thalis's words,
fervently agreed. She could speak Stygian only brokenly, but she
understood it well enough. Conan stood up, drawing her up beside him.

"If you'll show us the nearest way out of this city," he grunted,
"we'll take ourselves off." But his gaze lingered on the Stygian's
sleek limbs and ivory breasts.

She did not miss his look, and she smiled enigmatically as she rose
with the lithe ease of a great lazy cat.

"Follow me," she directed and led the way, conscious of Conan's eyes
fixed on her supple figure and perfectly poised carriage. She did not
go the way they had come, but before Conan's suspicions could be
roused, she halted in a wide ivory-cased chamber, and pointed to a
tiny fountain which gurgled in the center of the ivory floor.

"Don't you want to wash your face, child?" she asked Natala. "It is
stained with dust, and there is dust in your hair."

Natala colored resentfully at the suggestion of malice in the
Stygian's faintly mocking tone, but she complied, wondering miserably
just how much havoc the desert sun and wind had wrought on her
complexion--a feature for which women of her race were justly noted.
She knelt beside the fountain, shook back her hair, slipped her tunic
down to her waist, and began to lave not only her face, but her white
arms and shoulders as well.

"By Crom!" grumbled Conan. "A woman will stop to consider her beauty,
if the devil himself were on her heels. Haste, girl; you'll be dusty
again before we've got out of sight of this city. And Thalis, I'd take
it kindly if you'd furnish us with a bit of food and drink."

For answer Thalis leaned herself against him, slipping one white arm
about his bronzed shoulders. Her sleek naked flank pressed against his
thigh and the perfume of her foamy hair was in his nostrils.

"Why dare the desert?" she whispered urgently. "Stay here! I will
teach you the ways of Xuthal. I will protect you. I will love you! You
are a real man: I am sick of these moon-calves who sigh and dream and
wake, and dream again. I am hungry for the hard, clean passion of a
man from the earth. The blaze of your dynamic eyes makes my heart
pound in my bosom, and the touch of your iron-thewed arm maddens me.

"Stay here! I will make you king of Xuthal! I will show you all the
ancient mysteries, and the exotic ways of pleasure! I--" She had thrown
both arms about his neck and was standing on tiptoe, her vibrant body
shivering against his. Over her ivory shoulder he saw Natala, throwing
back her damp tousled hair, stop short, her lovely eyes dilating, her
red lips parting in a shocked O. With an embarrassed grunt, Conan
disengaged Thalis's clinging arms and put her aside with one massive
arm. She threw a swift glance at the Brythunian girl and smiled
enigmatically, seeming to nod her splendid head in mysterious
cogitation.

Natala rose and jerked up her tunic, her eyes blazing, her lips
pouting sulkily. Conan swore under his breath. He was no more
monogamous in his nature than the average soldier of fortune, but
there was an innate decency about him that was Natala's best
protection.

Thalis did not press her suit. Beckoning them with her slender hand to
follow, she turned and walked across the chamber.

There, close to the tapestried wall, she halted suddenly. Conan,
watching her, wondered if she had heard the sounds that might be made
by a nameless monster stealing through the midnight chambers, and his
skin crawled at the thought.

"What do you hear?" he demanded.

"Watch that doorway," she replied, pointing.

He wheeled, sword ready. Only the empty arch of the entrance met his
gaze. Then behind him sounded a quick faint scuffling noise, a half-
choked gasp. He whirled. Thalis and Natala had vanished. The tapestry
was settling back in place, as if it had been lifted away from the
wall. As he gaped bewilderedly, from behind that tapestried wall rang
a muffled scream in the voice of the Brythunian girl.

2

When Conan turned, in compliance with Thalis's request, to glare at
the doorway opposite, Natala had been standing just behind him, close
to the side of the Stygian. The instant the Cimmerian's back was
turned, Thalis, with a pantherish quickness almost incredible, clapped
her hand over Natala's mouth, stifling the cry she tried to give.
Simultaneously the Stygian's other arm was passed about the blond
girl's supple waist, and she was jerked back against the wall, which
seemed to give way as Thalis’s shoulder pressed against it. A section
of the wall swung inward, and through a slit that opened in the
tapestry Thalis slid with her captive, just as Conan wheeled back.

Inside was utter blackness as the secret door swung to again. Thalis
paused to fumble at it for an instant, apparently sliding home a bolt,
and as she took her hand from Natala's mouth to perform this act, the
Brythunian girl began to scream at the top of her voice. Thalis's
laugh was like poisoned honey in the darkness.

"Scream if you will, little fool. It will only shorten your life."

At that Natala ceased suddenly, and cowered shaking in every limb.

"Why did you do this?" she begged. "What are you going to do?"

"I am going to take you down this corridor for a short distance,"
answered Thalis, "and leave you for one who will sooner or later come
for you."

"Ohhhhhh!" Natala's voice broke in a sob of terror. "Why should you
harm me? I have never injured you!"

"I want your warrior. You stand in my way. He desires me--I could read
the look in his eyes. But for you, he would be willing to stay here
and be my king. When you are out of the way, he will follow me."

"He will cut your throat," answered Natala with conviction, knowing
Conan better than Thalis did.

"We shall see," answered the Stygian coolly from the confidence of her
power over men. "At any rate, you will not know whether he stabs or
kisses me, because you will be the bride of him who dwells in
darkness. Come!"

Half mad with terror, Natala fought like a wild thing, but it availed
her nothing. With a lithe strength she would not have believed
possible in a woman, Thalis picked her up and carried her down the
black corridor as if she had been a child. Natala did not scream
again, remembering the Stygian's sinister words; the only sounds were
her desperate quick panting and Thalis’s soft taunting lascivious
laughter. Then the Brythunian's fluttering hand closed on something in
the dark--a jeweled dagger hilt jutting from Thalis's gem-crusted
girdle. Natala jerked it forth and struck blindly and with all her
girlish power.

A scream burst from Thalis's lips, feline in its pain and fury. She
reeled, and Natala slipped from her relaxing grasp, to bruise her
tender limbs on the smooth stone floor. Rising, she scurried to the
nearest wall and stood there panting and trembling, flattening herself
against the stones. She could not see Thalis, but she could hear her.
The Stygian was quite certainly not dead. She was cursing in a steady
stream, and her fury was so concentrated and deadly that Natala felt
her bones turn to wax, her blood to ice.

"Where are you, you little she-devil?" gasped Thalis. "Let me get my
fingers on you again, and I'll--" Natala grew physically sick as Thalis
described the bodily injuries she intended to inflict on her rival.
The Stygian's choice of language would have shamed the toughest
courtezan in Aquilonia.

Natala heard her groping in the dark, and then a light sprang up.
Evidently whatever fear Thalis felt of the black corridor was
submerged in her anger. The light came from one of the radium gems
which adorned the walls of Xuthal. This Thalis had rubbed, and now she
stood bathed in its reddish glow: a light different from that which
the others had emitted. One hand was pressed to her side and blood
trickled between the fingers. But she did not seem weakened or badly
hurt, and her eyes blazed fiendishly. What little courage remained to
Natala ebbed away at sight of the Stygian standing limned in that
weird glow, her beautiful face contorted with a passion that was no
less than hellish. She now advanced with a pantherish tread, drawing
her hand away from her wounded side, and shaking the blood drops
impatiently from her fingers. Natala saw that she had not badly harmed
her rival. The blade had glanced from the jewels of Thalis's girdle
and inflicted only a very superficial flesh wound, only enough to
rouse the Stygian's unbridled fury.

"Give me that dagger, you fool!" she gritted, striding up to the
cowering girl.

Natala knew she ought to fight while she had the chance, but she
simply could not summon up the courage. Never much of a fighter, the
darkness, violence and horror of her adventure had left her limp,
mentally and physically. Thalis snatched the dagger from her lax
fingers and threw it contemptuously aside.

"You little slut!" she ground between her teeth, slapping the girl
viciously with either hand. "Before I drag you down the corridor and
throw you into Thog's jaws I'll have a little of your blood myself!
You would dare to knife me--well, for that audacity you shall pay!"

Seizing her by the hair, Thalis dragged her down the corridor a short
distance, to the edge of the circle of light. A metal ring showed in
the wall, above the level of a man's head. From it depended a silken
cord. As in a nightmare Natala felt her tunic being stripped from her,
and the next instant Thalis had jerked up her wrists and bound them to
the ring, where she hung, naked as the day she was born, her feet
barely touching the floor. Twisting her head, Natala saw Thalis unhook
a jewel-handled whip from where it hung on the wall, near the ring.
The lashes consisted of seven round silk cords, harder yet more pliant
than leather thongs.

With a hiss of vindictive gratification, Thalis drew back her arm, and
Natala shrieked as the cords curled across her loins. The tortured
girl writhed, twisted and tore agonizedly at the thongs which
imprisoned her wrists. She had forgotten the lurking menace her cries
might summon, and so apparently had Thalis. Every stroke evoked
screams of anguish. The whippings Natala had received in the Shemite
slave markets paled to insignificance before this. She had never
guessed the punishing power of hard-woven silk cords. Their caress was
more exquisitely painful than any birch twigs or leather thongs. They
whistled venomously as they cut the air.

Then, as Natala twisted her tear-stained face over her shoulder to
shriek for mercy, something froze her cries. Agony gave place to
paralyzing horror in her beautiful eyes.

Struck by her expression, Thalis checked her lifted hand and whirled
quick as a cat. Too late! An awful cry rang from her lips as she
swayed back, her arms upflung. Natala saw her for an instant, a white
figure of fear etched against a great black shapeless mass that
towered over her; then the white figure was whipped off its feet, the
shadow receded with it, and in the circle of dim light Natala hung
alone, half fainting with terror.

From the black shadows came sounds, incomprehensible and blood-
freezing. She heard Thalis's voice pleading frenziedly, but no voice
answered. There was no sound except the Stygian's panting voice, which
suddenly rose to screams of agony, and then broke in hysterical
laughter, mingled with sobs. This dwindled to a convulsive panting,
and presently this too ceased, and a silence more terrible hovered
over the secret corridor.

Nauseated with horror, Natala twisted about and dared to look
fearfully in the direction the black shape had carried Thalis. She saw
nothing, but she sensed an unseen peril, more grisly than she could
understand. She fought against a rising tide of hysteria. Her bruised
wrists, her smarting body were forgotten in the teeth of this menace
which she dimly felt threatened not only her body, but her soul as
well.

She strained her eyes into the blackness beyond the rim of the dim
light, tense with fear of what she might see. A whimpering gasp
escaped her lips. The darkness was taking form. Something huge and
bulky grew up out of the void. She saw a great misshapen head emerging
into the light. At least she took it for a head, though it was not the
member of any sane or normal creature. She saw a great toadlike face,
the features of which were as dim and unstable as those of a specter
seen in a mirror of nightmare. Great pools of light that might have
been eyes blinked at her, and she shook at the cosmic lust reflected
there. She could tell nothing about the creature's body. Its outline
seemed to waver and alter subtly even as she looked at it; yet its
substance was apparently solid enough. There was nothing misty or
ghostly about it.

As it came toward her, she could not tell whether it walked, wriggled,
flew or crept. Its method of locomotion was absolutely beyond her
comprehension. When it had emerged from the shadows she was still
uncertain as to its nature. The light from the radium gem did not
illumine it as it would have illumined an ordinary creature.
Impossible as it seemed, the being seemed almost impervious to the
light. Its details were still obscure and indistinct, even when it
halted so near that it almost touched her shrinking flesh. Only the
blinking toadlike face stood out with any distinctness. The thing was
a blur in the sight, a black blot of shadow that normal radiance would
neither dissipate nor illuminate.

She decided she was mad, because she could not tell whether the being
looked up at her or towered above her. She was unable to say whether
the dim repulsive face blinked up at her from the shadows at her feet,
or looked down at her from an immense height. But if her sight
convinced her that whatever its mutable qualities, it was yet composed
of solid substance, her sense of feel further assured her of that
fact. A dark tentacle-like member slid about her body, and she
screamed at the touch of it on her naked flesh. It was neither warm
nor cold, rough nor smooth; it was like nothing that had ever touched
her before, and at its caress she knew such fear and shame as she had
never dreamed of. All the obscenity and salacious infamy spawned in
the muck of the abysmal pits of Life seemed to drown her in seas of
cosmic filth. And in that instant she knew that whatever form of life
this thing represented it was not a beast.

She began to scream uncontrollably, the monster tugged at her as if to
tear her from the ring by sheer brutality; then something crashed
above their heads, and a form hurtled down through the air to strike
the stone floor.

3

When Conan wheeled to see the tapestry settling back in place and to
hear Natala's muffled cry, he hurled himself against the wall with a
maddened roar. Rebounding from the impact that would have splintered
the bones of a lesser man, he ripped away the tapestry revealing what
appeared to be a blank wall. Beside himself with fury he lifted his
saber as though to hew through the marble, when a sudden sound brought
him about, eyes blazing.

A score of figures faced him, yellow men in purple tunics, with short
swords in their hands. As he turned they surged in on him with hostile
cries. He made no attempt to conciliate them. Maddened at the
disappearance of his sweetheart, the barbarian reverted to type.

A snarl of bloodthirsty gratification hummed in his bull-throat as he
leaped, and the first attacker, his short sword overreached by the
whistling saber, went down with his brains gushing from his split
skull. Wheeling like a cat, Conan caught a descending wrist on his
edge, and the hand gripping the short sword flew into the air
scattering a shower of red drops. But Conan had not paused or
hesitated. A pantherish twist and shift of his body avoided the
blundering rush of two yellow swordsmen, and the blade of one missing
its objective, was sheathed in the breast of the other.

A yell of dismay went up at this mischance, and Conan allowed himself
a short bark of laughter as he bounded aside from a whistling cut and
slashed under the guard of yet another man of Xuthal. A long spurt of
crimson followed his singing edge and the man crumpled screaming, his
belly muscles cut through.

The warriors of Xuthal howled like mad wolves. Unaccustomed to battle,
they were ridiculously slow and clumsy compared to the tigerish
barbarian whose motions were blurs of quickness possible only to steel
thews knit to a perfect fighting brain. They floundered and stumbled,
hindered by their own numbers; they struck too quick or too soon, and
cut only empty air. He was never motionless or in the same place an
instant; springing, side-stepping, whirling, twisting, he offered a
constantly shifting target for their swords, while his own curved
blade sang death about their ears.

But whatever their faults, the men of Xuthal did not lack courage.
They swarmed about him yelling and hacking, and through the arched
doorways rushed others, awakened from their slumbers by the unwonted
clamor.

Conan, bleeding from a cut on the temple, cleared a space for an
instant with a devastating sweep of his dripping saber, and cast a
quick glance about for an avenue of escape. At that instant he saw the
tapestry on one of the walls drawn aside, disclosing a narrow
stairway. On this stood a man in rich robes, vague-eyed and blinking,
as if he had just awakened and had not yet shaken the dusts of slumber
from his brain. Conan's sight and action were simultaneous.

A tigerish leap carried him untouched through the hemming ring of
swords, and he bounded toward the stair with the pack giving tongue
behind him. Three men confronted him at the foot of the marble steps,
and he struck them with a deafening crash of steel. There was a
frenzied instant when the blades flamed like summer lightning; then
the group fell apart and Conan sprang up the stair. The oncoming horde
tripped over three writhing forms at its foot: one lay face-down in a
sickening welter of blood and brains; another propped himself on his
hands, blood spurting blackly from his severed throat veins; the other
howled like a dying dog as he clawed at the crimson stump that had
been an arm.

As Conan rushed up the marble stair, the man above shook himself from
his stupor and drew a sword that sparkled frostily in the radium
light. He thrust downward as the barbarian surged upon him. But as the
point sang toward his throat, Conan ducked deeply. The blade slit the
skin of his back, and Conan straightened, driving his saber upward as
a man might wield a butcher knife, with all the power of his mighty
shoulders.

So terrific was his headlong drive that the sinking of the saber to
the hilt into the belly of his enemy did not check him. He caromed
against the wretch's body, knocking it sideways. The impact sent Conan
crashing against the wall; the other, the saber torn through his body,
fell headlong down the stair, ripped open to the spine from groin to
broken breastbone. In a ghastly mess of streaming entrails the body
tumbled against the men rushing up the stairs, bearing them back with
it.

Half stunned, Conan leaned against the wall an instant, glaring down
upon them; then with a defiant shake of his dripping saber, he bounded
up the steps.

Coming into an upper chamber, he halted only long enough to see that
it was empty. Behind him the horde was yelling with such intensified
horror and rage, that he knew he had killed some notable man there on
the stair, probably the king of that fantastic city.

He ran at random, without plan. He desperately wished to find and
succor Natala, who he was sure needed aid badly; but harried as he was
by all the warriors in Xuthal, he could only run on, trusting to luck
to elude them and find her. Among those dark or dimly lighted upper
chambers he quickly lost all sense of direction, and it was not
strange that he eventually blundered into a chamber into which his
foes were just pouring.

They yelled vengefully and rushed for him, and with a snarl of disgust
he turned and fled back the way he had come. At least he thought it
was the way he had come. But presently, racing into a particularly
ornate chamber, he was aware of his mistake. All the chambers he had
traversed since mounting the stair had been empty. This chamber had an
occupant, who rose up with a cry as he charged in.

Conan saw a yellow-skinned woman, loaded with jeweled ornaments but
otherwise nude, staring at him with wide eyes. So much he glimpsed as
she raised her hand and jerked a silken rope hanging from the wall.
Then the floor dropped from under him, and all his steel-trap
coordination could not save him from the plunge into the black depths
that opened beneath him.

He did not fall any great distance, though it was far enough to have
snapped the leg bones of a man not built of steel springs and
whalebone.

He hit catlike on his feet and one hand, instinctively retaining his
grasp on his saber hilt. A familiar cry rang in his ears as he
rebounded on his feet as a lynx rebounds with snarling bared fangs. So
Conan, glaring from under his tousled mane, saw the white naked figure
of Natala writhing in the lustful grasp of a black nightmare shape
that could have only been bred in the lost pits of hell.

The sight of that awful shape alone might have frozen the Cimmerian
with fear. In juxtaposition to his girl, the sight sent a red wave of
murderous fury through Conan's brain. In a crimson mist he smote the
monster.

It dropped the girl, wheeling toward its attacker, and the maddened
Cimmerian's saber, shrilling through the air, sheared clear through
the black viscous bulk and rang on the stone floor, showering blue
sparks. Conan went to his knees from the fury of the blow; the edge
had not encountered the resistance he had expected. As he bounded up,
the thing was upon him.

It towered above him like a clinging black cloud. It seemed to flow
about him in almost liquid waves, to envelop and engulf him. His madly
slashing saber sheared through it again and again, his ripping poniard
tore and rent it; he was deluged with a slimy liquid that must have
been its sluggish blood. Yet its fury was nowise abated.

He could not tell whether he was slashing off its members or whether
he was cleaving its bulk, which knit behind the slicing blade. He was
tossed to and fro in the violence of that awful battle, and had a
dazed feeling that he was fighting not one, but an aggregation of
lethal creatures. The thing seemed to be biting, clawing, crushing and
clubbing him all at the same time. He felt fangs and talons rend his
flesh; flabby cables that were yet hard as iron encircled his limbs
and body, and worse than all, something like a whip of scorpions fell
again and again across his shoulders, back and breast, tearing the
skin and filling his veins with a poison that was like liquid fire.

They had rolled beyond the circle of light, and it was in utter
blackness that the Cimmerian battled. Once he sank his teeth, beast-
like, into the flabby substance of his foe, revolting as the stuff
writhed and squirmed like living rubber from between his iron jaws.

In that hurricane of battle they were rolling over and over, farther
and farther down the tunnel. Conan's brain reeled with the punishment
he was taking. His breath came in whistling gasps between his teeth.
High above him he saw a great toadlike face, dimly limned in an eery
glow that seemed to emanate from it. And with a panting cry that was
half curse, half gasp of straining agony, he lunged toward it,
thrusting with all his waning power. Hilt-deep the saber sank,
somewhere below the grisly face, and a convulsive shudder heaved the
vast bulk that half enveloped the Cimmerian. With a volcanic burst of
contraction and expansion, it tumbled backward, rolling now with
frantic haste down the corridor. Conan went with it, bruised,
battered, invincible, hanging on like a bulldog to the hilt of his
saber, which he could not withdraw, tearing and ripping at the
shuddering bulk with the poniard in his left hand, goring it to
ribbons.

The thing glowed all over now with a weird phosphorous radiance, and
this glow was in Conan's eyes, blinding him, as suddenly the heaving
billowing mass fell away from beneath him, the saber tearing loose and
remaining in his locked hand. This hand and arm hung down into space,
and far below him the glowing body of the monster was rushing downward
like a meteor. Conan dazedly realized that he lay on the brink of a
great round well, the edge of which was slimy stone. He lay there
watching the hurtling glow dwindling and dwindling until it vanished
into a dark shining surface that seemed to surge upward to meet it.
For an instant a dimming witch-fire glimmered in those dusky depths;
then it disappeared and Conan lay staring down into the blackness of
the ultimate abyss from which no sound came.

4

Straining vainly at the silk cords which cut into her wrists, Natala
sought to pierce the darkness beyond the radiant circle. Her tongue
seemed frozen to the roof of her mouth. Into that blackness she had
seen Conan vanish, locked in mortal combat with the unknown demon, and
the only sounds that had come to her straining ears had been the
panting gasps of the barbarian, the impact of struggling bodies, and
the thud and rip of savage blows. These ceased, and Natala swayed
dizzily on her cords, half fainting.

A footstep roused her out of her apathy of horror, to see Conan
emerging from the darkness. At the sight she found her voice in a
shriek which echoed down the vaulted tunnel. The manhandling the
Cimmerian had received was appalling to behold. At every step he
dripped blood. His face was skinned and bruised as if he had been
beaten with a bludgeon. His lips were pulped, and blood oozed down his
face from a wound in his scalp. There were deep gashes in his thighs,
calves and forearms, and great bruises showed on his limbs and body
from impacts against the stone floor. But his shoulders, back and
upper-breast muscles had suffered most. The flesh was bruised, swollen
and lacerated, the skin hanging in loose strips, as if he had been
lashed with wire whips.

"Oh, Conan!" she sobbed. "What has happened to you?"

He had no breath for conversation, but his smashed lips writhed in
what might have been grim humor as he approached her. His hairy
breast, glistening with sweat and blood, heaved with his panting.
Slowly and laboriously he reached up and cut her cords, then fell back
against the wall and leaned there, his trembling legs braced wide. She
scrambled up from where she had fallen and caught him in a frenzied
embrace, sobbing hysterically.

"Oh, Conan, you are wounded unto death! Oh, what shall we do?"

"Well," he panted, "you can't fight a devil out of hell and come off
with a whole skin!"

"Where is it?" she whispered. "Did you kill it?"

"I don't know. It fell into a pit. It was hanging in bloody shreds,
but whether it can be killed by steel I know not."

"Oh, your poor back!" she wailed, wringing her hands.

"It lashed me with a tentacle," he grimaced, swearing as he moved. "It
cut like wire and burned like poison. But it was its damnable
squeezing that got my wind. It was worse than a python. If half my
guts are not mashed out of place, I'm much mistaken."

"What shall we do?" she whimpered.

He glanced up. The trap was closed. No sound came from above.

"We can't go back through the secret door," he muttered. "That room is
full of dead men, and doubtless warriors keep watch there. They must
have thought my doom sealed when I plunged through the floor above, or
else they dare not follow me into this tunnel.--Twist that radium gem
off the wall.--As I groped my way back up the corridor I felt arches
opening into other tunnels. We'll follow the first we come to. It may
lead to another pit, or to the open air. We must chance it. We can't
stay here and rot."

Natala obeyed, and holding the tiny point of light in his left hand
and his bloody saber in his right, Conan started down the corridor. He
went slowly, stiffly, only his animal vitality keeping him on his
feet. There was a blank glare in his bloodshot eyes, and Natala saw
him involuntarily lick his battered lips from time to time. She knew
his suffering was ghastly, but with the stoicism of the wilds he made
no complaint.

Presently the dim light shone on a black arch, and into this Conan
turned. Natala cringed at what she might see, but the light revealed
only a tunnel similar to that they had just left.

How far they went she had no idea, before they mounted a long stair
and came upon a stone door, fastened with a golden bolt.

She hesitated, glancing at Conan. The barbarian was swaying on his
feet, the light in his unsteady hand flinging fantastic shadows back
and forth along the wall.

"Open the door, girl," he muttered thickly. "The men of Xuthal will be
waiting for us, and I would not disappoint them. By Crom, the city has
not seen such a sacrifice as I will make!"

She knew he was half delirious. No sound came from beyond the door.
Taking the radium gem from his blood-stained hand, she threw the bolt
and drew the panel inward. The inner side of a cloth-of-gold tapestry
met her gaze and she drew it aside and peeked through, her heart in
her mouth. She was looking into an empty chamber in the center of
which a silvery fountain tinkled.

Conan's hand fell heavily on her naked shoulder.

"Stand aside, girl," he mumbled. "Now is the feasting of swords."

"There is no one in the chamber," she answered. "But there is water--"

"I hear it," he licked his blackened lips. "We will drink before we
die."

He seemed blinded. She took his darkly stained hand and led him
through the stone door. She went on tiptoe, expecting a rush of yellow
figures through the arches at any instant.

"Drink while I keep watch," he muttered.

"No, I am not thirsty. Lie down beside the fountain and I will bathe
your wounds."

"What of the swords of Xuthal?" He continually raked his arm across
his eyes as if to clear his blurred sight.

"I hear no one. All is silent."

He sank down gropingly and plunged his face into the crystal jet,
drinking as if he could not get enough. When he raised his head there
was sanity in his bloodshot eyes and he stretched his massive limbs
out on the marble floor as she requested, though he kept his saber in
his hand, and his eyes continually roved toward the archways. She
bathed his torn flesh and bandaged the deeper wounds with strips torn
from a silk hanging. She shuddered at the appearance of his back; the
flesh was discolored, mottled and spotted black and blue and a sickly
yellow, where it was not raw. As she worked she sought frantically for
a solution to their problem. If they stayed where they were, they
would eventually be discovered. Whether the men of Xuthal were
searching the palaces for them, or had returned to their dreams, she
could not know.

As she finished her task, she froze. Under the hanging that partly
concealed an alcove, she saw a hand's breadth of yellow flesh.

Saying nothing to Conan, she rose and crossed the chamber softly,
grasping his poniard. Her heart pounded suffocatingly as she
cautiously drew aside the hanging. On the dais lay a young yellow
woman, naked and apparently lifeless. At her hand stood a jade jar
nearly full of peculiar golden-colored liquid. Natala believed it to
be the elixir described by Thalis, which lent vigor and vitality to
the degenerate Xuthal. She leaned across the supine form and grasped
the vessel, her poniard poised over the girl's bosom. The latter did
not wake.

With the jar in her possession, Natala hesitated, realizing it would
be the safer course to put the sleeping girl beyond the power of
waking and raising an alarm. But she could not bring herself to plunge
the Cimmerian poniard into that still bosom, and at last she drew back
the hanging and returned to Conan, who lay where she had left him,
seemingly only partly conscious.

She bent and placed the jar to his lips. He drank, mechanically at
first, then with a suddenly roused interest. To her amazement he sat
up and took the vessel from her hands. When he lifted his face, his
eyes were clear and normal. Much of the drawn haggard look had gone
from his features, and his voice was not the mumble of delirium.

"Crom! Where did you get this?"

She pointed. "From that alcove, where a yellow hussy is sleeping."

He thrust his muzzle again into the golden liquid.

"By Crom," he said with a deep sigh, "I feel new life and power rush
like wildfire through my veins. Surely this is the very elixir of
Life!"

"We had best go back into the corridor," Natala ventured nervously.
"We shall be discovered if we stay here long. We can hide there until
your wounds heal--"

"Not I," he grunted. "We are not rats, to hide in dark burrows. We
leave this devil-city now, and let none seek to stop us."

"But your wounds!" she wailed.

"I do not feel them," he answered. "It may be a false strength this
liquor has given me, but I swear I am aware of neither pain nor
weakness."

With sudden purpose he crossed the chamber to a window she had not
noticed. Over his shoulder she looked out. A cool breeze tossed her
tousled locks. Above was the dark velvet sky, clustered with stars.
Below them stretched a vague expanse of sand.

"Thalis said the city was one great palace," said Conan. "Evidently
some of the chambers are built like towers on the wall. This one is.
Chance has led us well."

"What do you mean?" she asked, glancing apprehensively over her
shoulder.

"There is a crystal jar on that ivory table," he answered. "Fill it
with water and tie a strip of that torn hanging about its neck for a
handle while I rip up this tapestry."

She obeyed without question, and when she turned from her task she saw
Conan rapidly tying together the long, tough strips of silk to make a
rope, one end of which he fastened to the leg of the massive ivory
table.

"We'll take our chance with the desert," said he. "Thalis spoke of an
oasis a day's march to the south, and grasslands beyond that. If we
reach the oasis we can rest until my wounds heal. This wine is like
sorcery. A little while ago I was little more than a dead man; now I
am ready for anything. Here is enough silk left for you to make a
garment of."

Natala had forgotten her nudity. The mere fact caused her no qualms,
but her delicate skin would need protection from the desert sun. As
she knotted the silk length about her supple body, Conan turned to the
window and with a contemptuous wrench tore away the soft gold bars
that guarded it. Then, looping the loose end of his silk rope about
Natala's hips, and cautioning her to hold on with both hands, he
lifted her through the window and lowered her the thirty-odd feet to
the earth. She stepped out of the loop, and drawing it back up, he
made fast the vessels of water and wine, and lowered them to her. He
followed them, sliding down swiftly, hand over hand.

As he reached her side, Natala gave a sigh of relief. They stood alone
at the foot of the great wall, the paling stars overhead and the naked
desert about them. What perils yet confronted them she could not know,
but her heart sang with joy because they were out of that ghostly,
unreal city.

"They may find the rope," grunted Conan, slinging the precious jars
across his shoulders, wincing at the contact with his mangled flesh.
"They may even pursue us, but from what Thalis said, I doubt it. That
way is south," a bronze muscular arm indicated their course; "so
somewhere in that direction lies the oasis. Come!"

Taking her hand with a thoughtfulness unusual for him, Conan strode
out across the sands, suiting his stride to the shorter legs of his
companion. He did not glance back at the silent city, brooding
dreamily and ghostily behind them.

"Conan," Natala ventured finally, "when you fought the monster, and
later, as you came up the corridor, did you see anything of--of
Thalis?"

He shook his head. "It was dark in the corridor; but it was empty."

She shuddered. "She tortured me--yet I pity her."

"It was a hot welcome we got in that accursed city," he snarled. Then
his grim humor returned. "Well, they'll remember our visit long
enough, I'll wager. There are brains and guts and blood to be cleaned
off the marble tiles, and if their god still lives, he carries more
wounds than I. We got off light, after all: we have wine and water and
a good chance of reaching a habitable country, though I look as if
I've gone through a meatgrinder, and you have a sore--"

"It's all your fault," she interrupted. "If you had not looked so long
and admiringly at that Stygian cat--"

"Crom and his devils!" he swore. "When the oceans drown the world,
women will take time for jealousy. Devil take their conceit! Did I
tell the Stygian to fall in love with me? After all, she was only
human!"