The Devil in Iron Read online

  5

  Along the black silent tunnel Conan groped, momentarily dreading a fallinto some unseen pit; but at last his feet struck steps again, and hewent up them until he came to a door on which his fumbling fingers founda metal catch. He came out into a dim and lofty room of enormousproportions. Fantastic columns marched around the mottled walls,upholding a ceiling, which, at once translucent and dusky, seemed like acloudy midnight sky, giving an illusion of impossible height. If anylight filtered in from the outside it was curiously altered.

  In a brooding twilight Conan moved across the bare green floor. Thegreat room was circular, pierced on one side by the great bronze valvesof a giant door. Opposite this, on a dais against the wall, up to whichled broad curving steps, there stood a throne of copper, and when Conansaw what was coiled on this throne, he retreated hastily, lifting hisscimitar.

  Then, as the thing did not move, he scanned it more closely, andpresently mounted the glass steps and stared down at it. It was agigantic snake, apparently carved in some jade-like substance. Eachscale stood out as distinctly as in real life, and the iridescent colorswere vividly reproduced. The great wedge-shaped head was half submergedin the folds of its trunk; so neither the eyes nor jaws were visible.Recognition stirred in his mind. This snake was evidently meant torepresent one of those grim monsters of the marsh which in past ages hadhaunted the reedy edges of Vilayet's southern shores. But, like thegolden leopard, they had been extinct for hundreds of years. Conan hadseen rude images of them, in miniature, among the idol-huts of theYuetshi, and there was a description of them in the _Book of Skelos_,which drew on prehistoric sources.

  Conan admired the scaly torso, thick as his thigh and obviously of greatlength, and he reached out and laid a curious hand on the thing. And ashe did so, his heart nearly stopped. An icy chill congealed the blood inhis veins and lifted the short hair on his scalp. Under his hand therewas not the smooth, brittle surface of glass or metal or stone, but theyielding, fibrous mass of a _living_ thing. He felt cold, sluggish lifeflowing under his fingers.

  His hand jerked back in instinctive repulsion. Sword shaking in hisgrasp, horror and revulsion and fear almost choking him, he backed awayand down the glass steps with painful care, glaring in awful fascinationat the grisly thing that slumbered on the copper throne. It did notmove.

  He reached the bronze door and tried it, with his heart in his teeth,sweating with fear that he should find himself locked in with that slimyhorror. But the valves yielded to his touch, and he glided through andclosed them behind him.

  He found himself in a wide hallway with lofty tapestried walls, wherethe light was the same twilight gloom. It made distant objectsindistinct and that made him uneasy, rousing thoughts of serpentsgliding unseen through the dimness. A door at the other end seemed milesaway in the illusive light. Nearer at hand the tapestry hung in such away as to suggest an opening behind it, and lifting it cautiously hediscovered a narrow stair leading up.

  While he hesitated he heard in the great room he had just left, thesame shuffling tread he had heard outside the locked panel. Had he beenfollowed through the tunnel? He went up the stair hastily, dropping thetapestry in place behind him.

  Emerging presently into a twisting corridor, he took the first doorwayhe came to. He had a twofold purpose in his apparently aimless prowling:to escape from the building and its mysteries, and to find the Nemediangirl who, he felt, was imprisoned somewhere in this palace, temple, orwhatever it was. He believed it was the great domed edifice in thecenter of the city, and it was likely that here dwelt the ruler of thetown, to whom a captive woman would doubtless be brought.

  He found himself in a chamber, not another corridor, and was about toretrace his steps, when he heard a voice which came from behind one ofthe walls. There was no door in that wall, but he leaned close and hearddistinctly. And an icy chill crawled slowly along his spine. The tonguewas Nemedian, but the voice was not human. There was a terrifyingresonance about it, like a bell tolling at midnight.

  'There was no life in the Abyss, save that which was incorporated inme,' it tolled. 'Nor was there light, nor motion, nor any sound. Onlythe urge behind and beyond life guided and impelled me on my upwardjourney, blind, insensate, inexorable. Through ages upon ages, and thechangeless strata of darkness I climbed--'

  Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of allelse, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of facultiesand perception, and sound created the illusion of sight. Conan was nolonger aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythmical waves of sound.Transported beyond his age and his own individuality, he was seeing thetransmutation of the being men called Khosatral Khel which crawled upfrom Night and the Abyss ages ago to clothe itself in the substance ofthe material universe.

  But human flesh was too frail, too paltry to hold the terrific essencethat was Khosatral Khel. So he stood up in the shape and aspect of aman, but his flesh was not flesh, nor the bone, bone, nor blood, blood.He became a blasphemy against all nature, for he caused to live andthink and act a basic substance that before had never known the pulseand stir of animate being.

  He stalked through the world like a god, for no earthly weapon couldharm him, and to him a century was like an hour. In his wanderings hecame upon a primitive people inhabiting the island of Dagonia, and itpleased him to give this race culture and civilization, and by his aidthey built the city of Dagon and they abode there and worshipped him.Strange and grisly were his servants, called from the dark corners ofthe planet where grim survivals of forgotten ages yet lurked. His housein Dagon was connected with every other house by tunnels through whichhis shaven-headed priests bore victims for the sacrifice.

  But after many ages a fierce and brutish people appeared on the shoresof the sea. They called themselves Yuetshi, and after a fierce battlethey were defeated and enslaved, and for nearly a generation they diedon the altars of Khosatral.

  His sorcery kept them in bonds. Then their priest, a strange gaunt manof unknown race, plunged into the wilderness, and when he returned hebore a knife that was of no earthly substance. It was forged of a meteorwhich flashed through the sky like a flaming arrow and fell in a farvalley. The slaves rose. Their saw-edged crescents cut down the men ofDagon like sheep, and against that unearthly knife the magic ofKhosatral was impotent. While carnage and slaughter bellowed through thered smoke that choked the streets, the grimmest act of that grim dramawas played in the cryptic dome behind the great daised chamber with itscopper throne and its walls mottled like the skin of serpents.

  From that dome the Yuetshi priest emerged alone. He had not slain hisfoe, because he wished to hold the threat of his losing over the headsof his own rebellious subjects. He had left Khosatral lying upon thegolden dais with the mystic knife across his breast for a spell to holdhim senseless and inanimate until doomsday.

  But the ages passed and the priest died, the towers of deserted Dagoncrumbled, the tales became dim, and the Yuetshi were reduced by plaguesand famines and war to scattered remnants, dwelling in squalor along theseashore.

  Only the cryptic dome resisted the rot of time, until a chancethunderbolt and the curiosity of a fisherman lifted from the breast ofthe god the magic knife and broke the spell. Khosatral Khel rose andlived and waxed mighty once more. It pleased him to restore the city asit was in the days before its fall. By his necromancy he lifted thetowers from the dust of forgotten millenniums, and the folk which hadbeen dust for ages moved in life again.

  But folk who have tasted death are only partly alive. In the darkcorners of their souls and minds death still lurks unconquered. By nightthe people of Dagon moved and loved, hated and feasted, and rememberedthe fall of Dagon and their own slaughter only as a dim dream; theymoved in an enchanted mist of illusion, feeling the strangeness of theirexistence but not inquiring the reasons therefor. With the coming of daythey sank into deep sleep, to be roused again only by the coming ofnight, which is akin to death.

  All this rolled in a terrible panorama before C
onan's consciousness ashe crouched beside the tapestried wall. His reason staggered. Allcertainty and sanity were swept away, leaving a shadowy universe throughwhich stole hooded figures of grisly potentialities. Through the bellingof the voice which was like a tolling of triumph over the ordered lawsof a sane planet, a human sound anchored Conan's mind from its flightthrough spheres of madness. It was the hysterical sobbing of a woman.

  Involuntarily he sprang up.

  6

  Jehungir Agha waited with growing impatience in his boat among thereeds. More than an hour passed, and Conan had not reappeared. Doubtlesshe was still searching the island for the girl he thought to be hiddenthere. But another surmise occurred to the Agha. Suppose the _hetman_had left his warriors near by, and that they should grow suspicious andcome to investigate his long absence? Jehungir spoke to the oarsmen, andthe long boat slid from among the reeds and glided toward the carvenstairs.

  Leaving half a dozen men in the boat, he took the rest, ten mightyarchers of Khawarizm, in spired helmets and tiger-skin cloaks. Likehunters invading the retreat of the lion, they stole forward under thetrees, arrows on string. Silence reigned over the forest except when agreat green thing that might have been a parrot swirled over their headswith a low thunder of broad wings, and then sped off through the trees.With a sudden gesture Jehungir halted his party, and they staredincredulously at the towers that showed through the verdure in thedistance.

  'Tarim!' muttered Jehungir. 'The pirates have rebuilt the ruins!Doubtless Conan is there. We must investigate this. A fortified townthis close to the mainland!--Come!'

  With renewed caution they glided through the trees. The game hadaltered; from pursuers and hunters they had become spies.

  And as they crept through the tangled growth, the man they sought was inperil more deadly than their filigreed arrows.

  * * * * *

  Conan realized with a crawling of his skin that beyond the wall thebelling voice had ceased. He stood motionless as a statue, his gazefixed on a curtained door through which he knew that a culminatinghorror would presently appear.

  It was dim and misty in the chamber, and Conan's hair began to lift onhis scalp as he looked. He saw a head and a pair of gigantic shouldersgrow out of the twilight gloom. There was no sound of footsteps, but thegreat dusky form grew more distinct until Conan recognized the figure ofa man. He was clad in sandals, a skirt and a broad shagreen girdle. Hissquare-cut mane was confined by a circlet of gold. Conan stared at thesweep of the monstrous shoulders, the breadth of the swelling breast,the bands and ridges and clusters of muscles on torso and limbs. Theface was without weakness and without mercy. The eyes were balls of darkfire. And Conan knew that this was Khosatral Khel, the ancient from theAbyss, the god of Dagonia.

  No word was spoken. No word was necessary. Khosatral spread his greatarms, and Conan, crouching beneath them, slashed at the giant's belly.Then he bounded back, eyes blazing with surprise. The keen edge had rungon the mighty body as on an anvil, rebounding without cutting. ThenKhosatral came upon him in an irresistible surge.

  There was a fleeting concussion, a fierce writhing and intertwining oflimbs and bodies, and then Conan sprang clear, every thew quivering fromthe violence of his efforts; blood started where the grazing fingers hadtorn the skin. In that instant of contact he had experienced theultimate madness of blasphemed nature; no human flesh had bruised his,but _metal_ animated and sentient; it was a body of living iron whichopposed his.

  Khosatral loomed above the warrior in the gloom. Once let those greatfingers lock and they would not loosen until the human body hung limp intheir grasp. In that twilit chamber it was as if a man fought with adream-monster in a nightmare.

  Flinging down his useless sword, Conan caught up a heavy bench andhurled it with all his power. It was such a missile as few men couldeven lift. On Khosatral's mighty breast it smashed into shreds andsplinters. It did not even shake the giant on his braced legs. His facelost something of its human aspect, a nimbus of fire played about hisawesome head, and like a moving tower he came on.

  With a desperate wrench Conan ripped a whole section of tapestry fromthe wall and whirling it, with a muscular effort greater than thatrequired for throwing the bench, he flung it over the giant's head. Foran instant Khosatral floundered, smothered and blinded by the clingingstuff that resisted his strength as wood or steel could not have done,and in that instant Conan caught up his scimitar and shot out into thecorridor. Without checking his speed he hurled himself through the doorof the adjoining chamber, slammed the door and shot the bolt.

  Then as he wheeled he stopped short, all the blood in him seeming tosurge to his head. Crouching on a heap of silk cushions, golden hairstreaming over her naked shoulders, eyes blank with terror, was thewoman for whom he had dared so much. He almost forgot the horror at hisheels until a splintering crash behind him brought him to his senses. Hecaught up the girl and sprang for the opposite door. She was toohelpless with fright either to resist or to aid him. A faint whimper wasthe only sound of which she seemed capable.

  Conan wasted no time trying the door. A shattering stroke of hisscimitar hewed the lock asunder, and as he sprang through to the stairthat loomed beyond it, he saw the head and shoulders of Khosatral crashthrough the other door. The colossus was splintering the massive panelsas if they were of cardboard.

  Conan raced up the stair, carrying the big girl over one shoulder aseasily as if she had been a child. Where he was going he had no idea,but the stair ended at the door of a round, domed chamber. Khosatral wascoming up the stair behind them, silently as a wind of death, and asswiftly.

  The chamber's walls were of solid steel, and so was the door. Conan shutit and dropped in place the great bars with which it was furnished. Thethought struck him that this was Khosatral's chamber, where he lockedhimself in to sleep securely from the monsters he had loosed from thePits to do his bidding.

  Hardly were the bolts in place when the great door shook and trembled tothe giant's assault. Conan shrugged his shoulders. This was the end ofthe trail. There was no other door in the chamber, nor any window. Air,and the strange misty light, evidently came from interstices in thedome. He tested the nickel edge of his scimitar, quite cool now that hewas at bay. He had done his volcanic best to escape; when the giant camecrashing through that door he would explode in another savage onslaughtwith his useless sword, not because he expected it to do any good, butbecause it was his nature to die fighting. For the moment there was nocourse of action to take, and his calmness was not forced or feigned.

  The gaze he turned on his fair companion was as admiring and intense asif he had a hundred years to live. He had dumped her unceremoniously onthe floor when he turned to close the door, and she had risen to herknees, mechanically arranging her streaming locks and her scantygarment. Conan's fierce eyes glowed with approval as they devoured herthick golden hair, her clear wide eyes, her milky skin, sleek withexuberant health, the firm swell of her breasts, the contours of hersplendid hips.

  A low cry escaped her as the door shook and a bolt gave way with agroan.

  Conan did not look around. He knew the door would hold a little whilelonger.

  'They told me you had escaped,' he said. 'A Yuetshi fisher told me youwere hiding here. What is your name?'

  'Octavia,' she gasped mechanically. Then words came in a rush. Shecaught at him with desperate fingers. 'Oh Mitra! what nightmare is this?The people--the dark-skinned people--one of them caught me in the forestand brought me here. They carried me to--to that--that _thing_. He toldme--he said--am I mad? Is this a dream?'

  He glanced at the door which bulged inward as if from the impact of abattering-ram.

  'No,' he said, 'it's no dream. That hinge is giving way. Strange that adevil has to break down a door like a common man; but after all, hisstrength itself is a diabolism.'

  'Can you not kill him?' she panted. 'You are strong.'

  Conan was too honest to lie. 'If a mortal man could kill him, he'd
bedead now,' he answered. 'I nicked my blade on his belly.'

  Her eyes dulled. 'Then you must die, and I must--oh Mitra!' she screamedin sudden frenzy, and Conan caught her hands, fearing that she wouldharm herself. 'He told me what he was going to do to me!' she panted.'Kill me! Kill me with your sword before he bursts the door!'

  Conan looked at her, and shook his head.

  'I'll do what I can,' he said. 'That won't be much, but it'll give you achance to get past him down the stair. Then run for the cliffs. I have aboat tied at the foot of the steps. If you can get out of the palace youmay escape him yet. The people of this city are all asleep.'

  She dropped her head in her hands. Conan took up his scimitar and movedover to stand before the echoing door. One watching him would haverealized that he was waiting for a death he regarded as inevitable. Hiseyes smoldered more vividly; his muscular hand knotted harder on hishilt; that was all.

  The hinges had given under the giant's terrible assault and the doorrocked crazily, held only by the bolts. And these solid steel bars werebuckling, bending, bulging out of their sockets. Conan watched in analmost impersonal fascination, envying the monster his inhuman strength.

  Then without warning the bombardment ceased. In the stillness Conanheard other noises on the landing outside--the beat of wings, and amuttering voice that was like the whining of wind through midnightbranches. Then presently there was silence, but there was a new _feel_in the air. Only the whetted instincts of barbarism could have sensedit, but Conan knew, without seeing or hearing him leave, that the masterof Dagon no longer stood outside the door.

  He glared through a crack that had been started in the steel of theportal. The landing was empty. He drew the warped bolts and cautiouslypulled aside the sagging door. Khosatral was not on the stair, but farbelow he heard the clang of a metal door. He did not know whether thegiant was plotting new devilries or had been summoned away by thatmuttering voice, but he wasted no time in conjectures.

  He called to Octavia, and the new note in his voice brought her up toher feet and to his side almost without her conscious volition.

  'What is it?' she gasped.

  'Don't stop to talk!' He caught her wrist. 'Come on!' The chance foraction had transformed him; his eyes blazed, his voice crackled. 'Theknife!' he muttered, while almost dragging the girl down the stair inhis fierce haste. 'The magic Yuetshi blade! He left it in the dome! I--'his voice died suddenly as a clear mental picture sprang up before him.The dome adjoined the great room where stood the copper throne--sweatstarted out on his body. The only way to that dome was through that roomwith its copper throne and the foul thing that slumbered in it.

  But he did not hesitate. Swiftly they descended the stair, crossed thechamber, descended the next stair, and came into the great dim hall withits mysterious hangings. They had seen no sign of the colossus. Haltingbefore the great bronze-valved door, Conan caught Octavia by hershoulders and shook her in his intensity.

  'Listen!' he snapped. 'I'm going into that room and fasten the door.Stand here and listen; if Khosatral comes, call to me. If you hear mecry for you to go, run as though the devil were on your heels--which heprobably will be. Make for that door at the other end of the hall,because I'll be past helping you. I'm going for the Yuetshi knife!'

  Before she could voice the protest her lips were framing, he had slidthrough the valves and shut them behind him. He lowered the boltcautiously, not noticing that it could be worked from the outside. Inthe dim twilight his gaze sought that grim copper throne; yes, the scalybrute was still there, filling the throne with its loathsome coils. Hesaw a door behind the throne and knew that it led into the dome. But toreach it he must mount the dais, a few feet from the throne itself.

  A wind blowing across the green floor would have made more noise thanConan's slinking feet. Eyes glued on the sleeping reptile he reached thedais and mounted the glass steps. The snake had not moved. He wasreaching for the door....

  The bolt on the bronze portal clanged and Conan stifled an awful oath ashe saw Octavia come into the room. She stared about, uncertain in thedeeper gloom, and he stood frozen, not daring to shout a warning. Thenshe saw his shadowy figure and ran toward the dais, crying: 'I want togo with you! I'm afraid to stay alone--_oh_! She threw up her handswith a terrible scream as for the first time she saw the occupant of thethrone. The wedge-shaped head had lifted from its coils and thrust outtoward her on a yard of shining neck.

  Conan cleared the space between him and the throne with a desperatebound, his scimitar swinging with all his power. And with such blindingspeed did the serpent move that it whipped about and met him in fullmidair, lapping his limbs and body with half a dozen coils. Hishalf-checked stroke fell futilely as he crashed down on the dais,gashing the scaly trunk but not severing it.

  Then he was writhing on the glass steps with fold after slimy foldknotting about him, twisting, crushing, killing him. His right arm wasstill free, but he could get no purchase to strike a killing blow, andhe knew one blow must suffice. With a groaning convulsion of muscularexpansion that bulged his veins almost to bursting on his temples andtied his muscles in quivering, tortured knots, he heaved up on his feet,lifting almost the full weight of that forty-foot devil.

  An instant he reeled on wide-braced legs, feeling his ribs caving in onhis vitals and his sight growing dark, while his scimitar gleamed abovehis head. Then it fell, shearing through the scales and flesh andvertebrae. And where there had been one huge writhing cable, now therewere horribly two, lashing and flopping in the death throes. Conanstaggered away from their blind strokes. He was sick and dizzy, andblood oozed from his nose. Groping in a dark mist he clutched Octaviaand shook her until she gasped for breath.

  'Next time I tell you to stay somewhere,' he gasped, 'you stay!'

  He was too dizzy even to know whether she replied. Taking her wrist likea truant schoolgirl, he led her around the hideous stumps that stilllooped and knotted on the floor. Somewhere, in the distance, he thoughthe heard men yelling, but his ears were still roaring so that he couldnot be sure.

  The door gave to his efforts. If Khosatral had placed the snake there toguard the thing he feared, evidently he considered it ample precaution.Conan half expected some other monstrosity to leap at him with theopening of the door, but in the dimmer light he saw only the vague sweepof the arch above, a dully gleaming block of gold, and a half-moonglimmer on the stone.

  With a gasp of gratification he scooped it up, and did not linger forfurther exploration. He turned and fled across the room and down thegreat hall toward the distant door that he felt led to the outer air. Hewas correct. A few minutes later he emerged into the silent streets,half carrying, half guiding his companion. There was no one to be seen,but beyond the western wall there sounded cries and moaning wails thatmade Octavia tremble. He led her to the southwestern wall, and withoutdifficulty found a stone stair that mounted the rampart. He hadappropriated a thick tapestry rope in the great hall, and now, havingreached the parapet, he looped the soft strong cord about the girl'ships and lowered her to the earth. Then, making one end fast to amerlon, he slid down after her. There was but one way of escape from theisland--the stair on the western cliffs. In that direction he hurried,swinging wide around the spot from which had come the cries and thesound of terrible blows.

  Octavia sensed that grim peril lurked in those leafy fastnesses. Herbreath came pantingly and she pressed close to her protector. But theforest was silent now, and they saw no shape of menace until theyemerged from the trees and glimpsed a figure standing on the edge of thecliffs.

  Jehungir Agha had escaped the doom that had overtaken his warriors whenan iron giant sallied suddenly from the gate and battered and crushedthem into bits of shredded flesh and splintered bone. When he saw theswords of his archers break on that man-like juggernaut, he had known itwas no human foe they faced, and he had fled, hiding in the deep woodsuntil the sounds of slaughter ceased. Then he crept back to the stair,but his boatmen were not waiting for him.

 
; They had heard the screams, and presently, waiting nervously, had seen,on the cliff above them, a blood-smeared monster waving gigantic arms inawful triumph. They had waited for no more. When Jehungir came upon thecliffs they were just vanishing among the reeds beyond ear-shot.Khosatral was gone--had either returned to the city or was prowling theforest in search of the man who had escaped him outside the walls.

  Jehungir was just preparing to descend the stairs and depart in Conan'sboat, when he saw the _hetman_ and the girl emerge from the trees. Theexperience which had congealed his blood and almost blasted his reasonhad not altered Jehungir's intentions toward the _kozak_ chief. Thesight of the man he had come to kill filled him with gratification. Hewas astonished to see the girl he had given to Jelal Khan, but he wastedno time on her. Lifting his bow he drew the shaft to its head andloosed. Conan crouched and the arrow splintered on a tree, and Conanlaughed.

  'Dog!' he taunted. 'You can't hit me! I was not born to die on Hyrkaniansteel! Try again, pig of Turan!'

  Jehungir did not try again. That was his last arrow. He drew hisscimitar and advanced, confident in his spired helmet and close-meshedmail. Conan met him half-way in a blinding whirl of swords. The curvedblades ground together, sprang apart, circled in glittering arcs thatblurred the sight which tried to follow them. Octavia, watching, did notsee the stroke, but she heard its chopping impact, and saw Jehungirfall, blood spurting from his side where the Cimmerian's steel hadsundered his mail and bitten to his spine.

  But Octavia's scream was not caused by the death of her former master.With a crash of bending boughs Khosatral Khel was upon them. The girlcould not flee; a moaning cry escaped her as her knees gave way andpitched her grovelling to the sward.

  Conan, stooping above the body of the Agha, made no move to escape.Shifting his reddened scimitar to his left hand, he drew the greathalf-blade of the Yuetshi. Khosatral Khel was towering above him, hisarms lifted like mauls, but as the blade caught the sheen of the sun,the giant gave back suddenly.

  But Conan's blood was up. He rushed in, slashing with the crescentblade. And it did not splinter. Under its edge the dusky metal ofKhosatral's body gave way like common flesh beneath a cleaver. From thedeep gash flowed a strange ichor, and Khosatral cried out like thedirging of a great bell. His terrible arms flailed down, but Conan,quicker than the archers who had died beneath those awful flails,avoided their strokes and struck again and yet again. Khosatral reeledand tottered; his cries were awful to hear, as if metal were given atongue of pain, as if iron shrieked and bellowed under torment.

  Then wheeling away he staggered into the forest; he reeled in his gait,crashed through bushes and caromed off trees. Yet though Conan followedhim with the speed of hot passion, the walls and towers of Dagon loomedthrough the trees before the man came within dagger-reach of the giant.

  Then Khosatral turned again, flailing the air with desperate blows, butConan, fired to berserk fury, was not to be denied. As a panther strikesdown a bull moose at bay, so he plunged under the bludgeoning arms anddrove the crescent blade to the hilt under the spot where a human'sheart would be.

  Khosatral reeled and fell. In the shape of a man he reeled, but it wasnot the shape of a man that struck the loam. Where there had been thelikeness of a human face, there was no face at all, and the metal limbsmelted and changed.... Conan, who had not shrunk from Khosatral living,recoiled blenching from Khosatral dead, for he had witnessed an awfultransmutation; in his dying throes Khosatral Khel had become again the_thing_ that had crawled up from the Abyss millenniums gone. Gaggingwith intolerable repugnance, Conan turned to flee the sight; and he wassuddenly aware that the pinnacles of Dagon no longer glimmered throughthe trees. They had faded like smoke--the battlements, the crenellatedtowers, the great bronze gates, the velvets, the gold, the ivory, andthe dark-haired women, and the men with their shaven skulls. With thepassing of the inhuman intellect which had given them rebirth, they hadfaded back into the dust which they had been for ages uncounted. Onlythe stumps of broken columns rose above crumbling walls and broken pavesand shattered dome. Conan again looked upon the ruins of Xapur as heremembered them.

  The wild _hetman_ stood like a statue for a space, dimly graspingsomething of the cosmic tragedy of the fitful ephemera called mankindand the hooded shapes of darkness which prey upon it. Then as he heardhis name called in accents of fear, he started, as one awaking from adream, glanced again at the thing on the ground, shuddered and turnedaway toward the cliffs and the girl that waited there.

  She was peering fearfully under the trees, and she greeted him with ahalf-stifled cry of relief. He had shaken off the dim monstrous visionswhich had momentarily haunted him, and was his exuberant self again.

  'Where is _he_?' she shuddered.

  'Gone back to hell whence he crawled,' he replied cheerfully. 'Whydidn't you climb the stair and make your escape in my boat?'

  'I wouldn't desert--' she began, then changed her mind, and amendedrather sulkily, 'I have nowhere to go. The Hyrkanians would enslave meagain, and the pirates would--'

  'What of the _kozaks_?' he suggested.

  'Are they better than the pirates?' she asked scornfully. Conan'sadmiration increased to see how well she had recovered her poise afterhaving endured such frantic terror. Her arrogance amused him.

  'You seemed to think so in the camp by Ghori,' he answered. 'You werefree enough with your smiles then.'

  Her red lip curled in disdain. 'Do you think I was enamored of you? Doyou dream that I would have shamed myself before an ale-guzzling,meat-gorging barbarian unless I had to? My master--whose body liesthere--forced me to do as I did.'

  'Oh!' Conan seemed rather crestfallen. Then he laughed with undiminishedzest. 'No matter. You belong to me now. Give me a kiss.'

  'You dare ask--' she began angrily, when she felt herself snatched offher feet and crushed to the _hetman's_ muscular breast. She fought himfiercely, with all the supple strength of her magnificent youth, but heonly laughed exuberantly, drunk with his possession of this splendidcreature writhing in his arms.

  He crushed her struggles easily, drinking the nectar of her lips withall the unrestrained passion that was his, until the arms that strainedagainst him melted and twined convulsively about his massive neck. Thenhe laughed down into the clear eyes, and said: 'Why should not a chiefof the Free People be preferable to a city-bred dog of Turan?'

  She shook back her tawny locks, still tingling in every nerve from thefire of his kisses. She did not loosen her arms from his neck. 'Do youdeem yourself an Agha's equal?' she challenged.

  He laughed and strode with her in his arms toward the stair. 'You shalljudge,' he boasted. 'I'll burn Khawarizm for a torch to light your wayto my tent.'