The Hour of the Dragon, Robert E. Howard [best ebook reader for laptop txt] 📗

the

sleeping land.

 

Conan’s heart beat quicker as he gazed at the grim black wedge that

stood etched against the stars, and his impatience to close with

Thutothmes in whatever conflict the meeting might mean was not unmixed

with a fear of the unknown. No man could approach one of those somber

piles of black stone without apprehension. The very name was a symbol

of repellent horror among the northern nations, and legends hinted

that the Stygians did not build them; that they were in the land at

whatever immeasurably ancient date the dark-skinned people came into

the land of the great river.

 

As they approached the pyramid he glimpsed a dim glow near the base

which presently resolved itself into a doorway, on either side of

which brooded stone lions with the heads of women, cryptic,

inscrutable, nightmares crystallized in stone. The leader of the band

made straight for the doorway, in the deep well of which Conan saw a

shadowy figure.

 

The leader paused an instant beside this dim figure, and then vanished

into the dark interior, and one by one the others followed. As each

masked priest passed through the gloomy portal he was halted briefly

by the mysterious guardian and something passed between them, some

word or gesture Conan could not make out. Seeing this, the Cimmerian

purposely lagged behind, and stooping, pretended to be fumbling with

the fastening of his sandal. Not until the last of the masked figures

had disappeared did he straighten and approach the portal.

 

He was uneasily wondering if the guardian of the temple were human,

remembering some tales he had heard. But his doubts were set at rest.

A dim bronze cresset glowing just within the door lighted a long

narrow corridor that ran away into blackness, and a man standing

silent in the mouth of it, wrapped in a wide black cloak. No one else

was in sight. Obviously the masked priests had disappeared down the

corridor. Over the cloak that was drawn about his lower features, the

Stygian’s piercing eyes regarded Conan sharply. With his left hand he

made a curious gesture. On a venture Conan imitated it. But evidently

another gesture was expected; the Stygian’s right hand came from under

his cloak with a gleam of steel and his murderous stab would have

pierced the heart of an ordinary man. But he was dealing with one

whose thews were nerved to the quickness of a jungle cat. Even as the

dagger flashed in the dim light, Conan caught the dusky wrist and

smashed his clenched right fist against the Stygian’s jaw. The man’s

head went back against the stone wall with a dull crunch that told of

a fractured skull. Standing for an instant above him, Conan listened

intently. The cresset burned low, casting vague shadows about the

door. Nothing stirred in the blackness about the door. Nothing stirred

in the blackness beyond, though far away and below him, as it seemed,

 

He caught the faint, muffled note of a gong.

 

He stooped and dragged the body behind the great bronze door which

stood wide, opened inward, and then the Cimmerian went warily but

swiftly down the corridor, toward what doom he did not even try to

guess. He had not gone far when he halted, baffled. The corridor split

in two branches, and he had no way of knowing which the masked priests

had taken. At a venture he chose the left. The floor slanted slightly

downward and worn smooth as by many feet. Here and there a dim cresset

cast a faint nightmarish twilight. Conan wondered uneasily for what

purpose these colossal piles had been reared, in what forgotten age.

This was an ancient, ancient land. No man knew how many ages the black

temples of Stygia looked.

 

Against the stars, narrow black arches opened occasionally to right

and left, but he kept to the main corridor, although a conviction that

he had taken the wrong branch was growing in him. Even with their

start on him, he should have overtaken the priests by this time. He

was growing nervous. The silence was like a tangible thing, and yet he

had a feeling that he was not alone. More than once, passing a nighted

arch he seemed to feel the glare of unseen eyes fixed upon him. He

paused, half minded to turn back to where the corridor had first

branched. He wheeled abruptly, knife lifted, every nerve tingling.

 

A girl stood at the mouth of a smaller tunnel, staring fixedly at him.

Her ivory skin showed her to be Stygian of some ancient noble family,

and like all such women she was tall, lithe, voluptuously figured, her

hair a great pile of black foam, among which gleamed a sparkling ruby.

But for her velvet sandals and broad jewel-crusted girdle about her

supple waist she was quite nude.

 

“What do you here?” she demanded.

 

To answer would betray his alien origin. He remained motionless, a

grim, somber figure in the hideous mask with the plumes floating over

him. His alert gaze sought the shadows behind her and found them

empty. But there might be hordes of fighting-men within her call.

 

She advanced toward him, apparently without apprehension though with

suspicion.

 

“You are not a priest,” she said. “You are a fighting-man. Even with

that mask that is plain. There is as much difference between you and a

priest as there is between a man and a woman. By Set!” she exclaimed,

halting suddenly, her eyes flaring wide. “I do not believe you are

even a Stygian!”

 

With a movement too quick for the eye to follow, his hand closed about

her round throat, lightly as a caress.

 

“Not a sound out of you!” he muttered.

 

Her smooth ivory flesh was cold as marble, yet there was no fear in

the wide, dark, marvelous eyes which regarded him.

 

“Do not fear,” she answered calmly. “I will not betray you. But you

are mad to come, a stranger and a foreigner, to the forbidden temple

of Set?”

 

“I’m looking for the priest Thutothmes,” he answered. “Is he in this

temple?”

 

“Why do you seek him?” she parried. “He has something of mine which

was stolen.” “I will lead you to him, she volunteered, so promptly

that his suspicions were instantly aroused.

 

“Don’t play with me, girl,” he growled.

 

“I do not play with you. I have no love for Thutofhmes.” He

hesitated, then made up his mind; after all, he was in her power as

she was in his. “Walk beside me,” he commanded, shifting his grasp

from her throat to her wrist. “But walk with care. If you make a

move—”

 

She led him down the slanting corridor, down and down, until there

were no more cressets, and he groped his way in darkness, aware less

by sight than by feel and sense of the woman at his side. Once when he

spoke to her, she turned her head toward him and he was startled to

see her eyes glowing like golden fire in the dark. Dim doubts and

vague monstrous suspicions haunted his mind, but he followed her,

through a labyrinthine maze of black corridors that confused even his

primitive sense of direction. He mentally cursed himself for a fool,

allowing himself to be led into that black abode of mystery; but it

was too late to turn back now. Again he felt life and movement in the

darkness about him, sensed peril and hunger burning impatiently in the

blackness. Unless his ears deceived him he caught a faint sliding

noise that ceased and receded at a muttered command from the girl.

 

She led him at last into a chamber lighted by a curious seven-branched

candelabrum in which black candles burned weirdly. He knew they were

far below the earth. The chamber was square, with walls and ceilings

of polished black marble and furnished after the manner of the ancient

Stygians; there was a couch of ebony, covered with black velvet, and

on a black stone dais lay a carven mummy-case.

 

Conan stood waiting expectantly, staring at the various black arches

which opened into the chamber. But the girl made no move to go

farther. Stretching herself on the couch with feline suppleness, she

intertwined her fingers behind her sleek head and I regarded him from

under long, drooping lashes.

 

“Well?” he demanded impatiently. “What are you doing?”

 

Where’s Thutotomes?”

 

“There is no haste,” she answered lazily. “What is an hour-or a day,

or a year, or a century, for that matter? Take off your mask. Let me

see your features.”

 

With a grunt of annoyance Conan dragged on the bulky headpiece, and

the girl nodded as if in approval as she scanned his dark scarred face

and blazing eyes.

 

“There is strength inyou-great strength; you could strangle a

bullock.”

 

He moved restlessly, his suspicion growing. With his hand on his hilt

he peered into the gloomy arches.

 

“If you’ve brought me into a trap,” he said, “you won’t live to enjoy

your handiwork. Are you going to get off that couch and do as you

promised, or do I have to—”

 

His voice trailed away. He was staring at the mummy-case, on which the

countenance of the occupant was carved in ivory with the startling

vividness of a forgotten art. There was a disquieting familiarity

about that carven mask, and with something of a shock he realized what

it was; there was a startling resemblance between it and the face of

the girl lolling on the ebon couch. She might have been the model from

which it was carved, but he knew the portrait was at least centuries

old. Archaic hieroglyphics were scrawled across the lacquered lid,

and, seeking back into his mind for tag-ends of learning, picked up

here and there as incidentals of an adventurous life, he spelled them

out, and said aloud: “Akivasha!”

 

“You have heard of Princess Akivasha?” inquired the girl on the couch.

 

“Who hasn’t?” he grunted. The name of that ancient, evil, beautiful

princess still lived the world over in song and legend, though ten

thousand years had rolled their cycles since the daughter of Tuthamon

had reveled in purple feasts amid the black halls of ancient Luxur.

 

“Her only sin was that she loved life and all the meanings of life,”

said the Stygian girl. “To win life she courted death. She could not

bear to think of growing old and shriveled and worn, and dying at last

as hags die. She wooed Darkness like a lover and his gift was life-life that, not being life as mortals know it, can never grow old and

fade. She went into the shadows to cheat age and death—”

 

Conan glared at her with eyes that were suddenly burning slits. And he

wheeled and tore the lid from the sarcophagus. It was empty. Behind

him the girl was laughing and the sound froze the blood in his veins.

He whirled back to her, the short hairs on his neck bristling.

 

“You are Akivasha!” he grated.

 

She laughed and shook back her burnished locks, spread her arms

sensuously.

 

“I am Akivasha! I am the woman who never died, who never grew old! Who

fools say was lifted from the earth by the gods, in the full bloom of

her youth and beauty, to queen it for ever in some celestial clime!

Nay, it is in the shadows that mortals find immortality! Ten thousand

years ago I died to live for ever! Give me your lips, strong man!”

Rising lithely she came to him, rose on tiptoe and flung her arms

about his massive neck. Scowling down into her upturned, beautiful

countenance he was aware of a fearful fascination and an icy fear.

“Love