The G.o.ds be thanked!" He lifted quivering hands on high and then, with a fiendish convulsing of his dark features he spat on the corpses and kicked them, dancing in his ghoulish glee. His recent allies eyed him in amazement, and Conan asked, in Aquilonian: "Who is this madman?"

Valeria shrugged her shoulders.

"He says his name's Techotl. From his babblings I gather that his people live at one end of this crazy city, and these others at the other end. Maybe we'd better go with him. He seems friendly."

Techotl had ceased his dancing and he turned to them, triumph struggling with fear in his repellant countenance.

"Come away, now!" he chattered. "Come on! Come with me! My people will welcome you!

Five dead dogs! Not in years have we slain so many of the devils at one time, without losing a man nay, one man we lost, but we slew five! My people will honor you! But come! It is far to Techulthli. At any moment the Xecalancs may come on us in numbers too great even for your swords!"

"All right," grunted Conan. "Lead the way."

Techotl turned instantly and made off across the chamber, beckoning them to follow, which they did, having to move swiftly to keep on his heels.

"What sort of a place can this be?" muttered Valeria under her breath.

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"Crom knows," answered Conan. "I've seen his kind before, though. There's a tribe of them living on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Zuad, near the Kus.h.i.te border. They're a sort of mongrel Stygians, mixed with another race that wandered into Stygia from the east some centuries ago, and were absorbed by them. They're called Tlazetlans. I'm willing to bet they didn't build this city, though."

They were traversing a series of chambers and halls and Techotl's fear did not seem to diminish. He kept twisting his head on his shoulder to stare back fearfully and strain his ears for sounds of pursuit.

"They may have prepared an ambush for us!" he whispered.

"Why don't we get out of this infernal palace, and take to the streets?" demanded Valeria.

"There are no streets in Xuchotl," he answered. "No squares or open courts. All the buildings are connected; rather, all are under one great roof. The only doors opening into the outer world are the city-gates through which no one has pa.s.sed for fifty years."

"How long have you dwelt here?" asked Conan.

"I was born in Tecuhltli, and I am thirty-five years old. For the love of the G.o.ds, let us be silent! These halls may be full of lurking devils. Olmec shall tell you all when we reach Tecuhltli."

They moved on with the green fire stones blinking overhead and the flaming floors crackling under their feet, and it seemed to Valeria as if they fled through h.e.l.l, guided by a lank-haired goblin.

Through dim-lit chambers and winding corridors they moved swift and silent, until Conan halted them.

"You think some of your enemies may be ahead of us, intending to ambush us?" he said.

"They prowl through these halls at all hours," answered Techotl. "As do we. The chambers and corridors between Techuhltli and Xecalanc are a hunting ground owned by no man. Why do you ask?"

"Because men are in the chambers ahead of us," answered Conan. "I heard steel clink against stone."

Again a shaking seized Techotl and he clenched his teeth to keep them from chattering.

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"Perhaps they are your friends," suggested Valeria.

"We can not chance it," he answered, and moved with frenzied activity. He wheeled aside and led them down a winding stair to a dark corridor. Into it he plunged recklessly.

"It may be a trick to draw us into it," he hissed, great beads of perspiration standing out on his brow. "But we must chance it that they have laid their ambush in the rooms above! Come swiftly, now!"

They groped their way along the black corridor and were presently galvanized by the sound of a door opening softly behind them. Men had come into the corridor behind them.

"Swiftly!" panted Techotl, a note of hysteria in his voice, and fled away down the corridor.

Conan and Valeria followed him, Conan keeping to the rear, while the swift patter of flying feet drew closer and closer. Their pursuers knew the corridor better than he did. He wheeled suddenly and smote savagely in the dark, felt his blade jar home and heard some thing groan and fall. The next instant the corridor was flooded with light as Techotl threw open a door.

Conan followed the Tecuhltli and the girl through the door, and Techotl slammed it and shot a bolt across it the first Conan had seen on any door.

Then he turned and ran across the chamber, while behind them the door groaned and strained inward under heavy pressure violently applied. Conan and Valeria followed their guide through a series of well-lighted chambers, and up a winding stair and along a broad hall. They paused at a powerful bronze door, and Techotl said: "This is Tecuhltli!"

CHAPTER.

He knocked cautiously and then stepped back and waited. Conan decided that the people on the other side of the door had some way of seeing whoever stood before it. Presently the door swung noiselessly back, revealing a heavy chain across the entrance. Spear heads bristled and a fierce countenance regarded them suspiciously before the chain was removed.

Techotl led the way in and as soon as Conan and Valeria were inside, the door was closed, heavy bolts drawn, and the chain locked into place. Four men stood there, of the same lank- haired, dark-skinned breed as Techotl, with spears in their hands and swords at their hips. They regarded the strangers with amazement, but asked no questions.

They had come into a square chamber that opened into a broad hall. One of the four guards opened the door and they entered the hall which, like the guard-chamber, was lighted from above with a narrow slot-like skylight on each side of which winked the green fire-gems.

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"I will take you to Olmec, who is prince of Tecuhltli," said Techotl, and straightaway led them down the hall and into a broad chamber where some thirty men and women lounged on satin- covered couches. These sat up and stared in wonder. The men were of the same type as Techotl, all except one, and the women were equally dark and strange-eyed, but were not unbeautiful in a weird dark way. They wore sandals, gold breast-plates, and scanty silk skirts supported by gem-crusted girdles, and their black manes, cut square at their shoulders, were confined by silver circlets.

On a wide ivory seat on a jade dais sat a man and a woman who differed subtly from the others.

He was a giant as tall as the Cimmerian and heavier, with an enormous sweep of breast and the shoulders of a bull. Unlike the others he was bearded, with a thick, blue-black beard which fell almost to his broad girdle. He wore a robe of purple silk which reflected sheens of changing color with his every motion, and one wide sleeve, drawn back to his elbow, revealed a forearm ma.s.sive with corded muscles. The band which confined his thick black locks was set with sparkling jewels.

The woman, who sprang to her feet with a startled exclamation at the sight of Valeria, was tall and lithe, by far the most beautiful woman in the room. She was clad evenly more scantily than the others, for instead of a skirt, she wore merely a broad strip of gilt-worked cloth fastened to the middle of her girdle, which fell below her knees. Another at the back of her girdle completed that part of her costume. Her breast-plates and the circlet about her temples were adorned with jewels.

She sprang to her feet as the strangers entered. Her eyes, pa.s.sing over Conan, fixed themselves with burning intensity on Valeria. The people in the chamber rose and stared. There were youngsters among them, but the strangers saw no children.

"Prince Olmec," spoke Techotl, bowing low, with arms outspread and palms turned upward, "I bring allies from the outer world. In the Hall of Tezcoti the Living Skull slew Chicmec, my companion "

"The Living Skull!" the people breathed fearfully.

"Aye! Then came I, and found Chicmec lying with his throat cut. Before I could flee the Living Skull came upon me and when I met the glare of his eyes I became as one paralyzed. I could not move. I could only await the stroke. Then came this white-skinned woman and struck him down, and lo, it was only a dog of Xecalanc with white paint upon his skin and a masque upon his head! We have trembled in fear of him, deeming him a fiend the magic of the Xecalancas had invoked from the catacombs. But he was only a man, and now he is a dead man!"

An indescribably fierce exultation edged the last sentence, and was echoed in the low, savage 329.

exclamations from the crowding people.

"But wait!" exclaimed Techotl. "There is more! While I talked with the woman, four Xecalancas came upon us one I slew there is a stab in my thigh to prove how desperate was the fight. Two the woman killed. But we were hard pressed when this man came into the fray and split the skull of the fourth! Aye! Five crimson nails there are to be driven into the pillar of vengeance!"

He pointed to a black column of ebony which stood behind the dais. Hundreds of red dots showed there the bright scarlet heads of heavy nails driven into the black wood.

"One red nail for a Xecalanc life!" exulted Techotl, and the faces of the listeners were contorted with horrible exultation.

"Who are these people?" asked Olmec, and his voice was like the deep, low rumble of a bull.

None of the people of Xuchotl spoke loudly. It was as if they had taken into their souls the silence of the empty halls and deserted chambers.

"I am Conan, a Cimmerian," answered the barbarian briefly. "This woman is Valeria of the Red Brotherhood. We deserted from an army on the Darfar border, far to the north, and are trying to reach the coast."

The woman on the dais spoke hastily; her burning eyes had never left Valeria's face.

"You can never reach the coast! You must spend the rest of your lives in Xuchotl! There is no escape!"

"What do you mean?" growled Conan, clapping his hand to his hilt and stepping about so as to face both dais and the rest of the room at the same time. "Are you saying that we're prisoners?"

"She did not mean that," interposed Olmec. "We are your friends. We would not restrain you against your will. But I fear other circ.u.mstances will make it impossible for you to leave Xuchotl." His eyes also rested on Valeria, and he lowered them quickly.

"This woman is Tascela," he said. "She is princess of Tecuhltli. But let food and drink be brought our guests. Doubtless they are hungry and weary from travel."

He indicated the ivory table, and Conan and Valeria seated themselves, while Techotl placed himself on hand to attend them. He seemed to consider it a privilege and honor to see after their needs. The other men and women hastened to bring food and drink in gold vessels and dishes, and Olmec sat in silence on his ivory seat, watching them from under his broad black brows.

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Tascela sat beside him, chin cupped in her hands and her elbows resting on her knees. Her dark, enigmatic eyes, burning with a cryptic light, did not leave the supple figure of Valeria.

The food was unfamiliar to the wanderers, some sort of fruit but palatable, and the drink was a light crimson wine that had a heady tang.

"How you won through the forest is a wonder to me," quoth Olmec. "In bygone days a thousand fighting men were not too many to carve a way through its perils."

"We encountered a bench-legged monstrosity about the size of a mastodon," said Conan carelessly, holding out his wine goblet which Techotl filled with evident pleasure. "But when we'd killed it we had no farther trouble."

The wine vessel slipped from Techotl's hand to crash on the floor. His dusky skin went ashy.

Olmec started to his feet, an image of dumbfounded amazement, and from the others breathed up a low gasp of awe or terror. Conan glared about him in bewilderment.

"What's the matter? What are you all gaping about?"

"You slew the dragon?" stammered Olmec.

"Why not? It was trying to eat us. There's no law against killing a dragon, is there?"

"But dragons are immortal!" exclaimed Olmec. "No man ever killed a dragon! No man ever could! The thousand fighting men of our ancestors who fought their way to Xuchotl could not prevail against them! Their swords broke like twigs against their scales!"

"If your ancestors had thought to dip their spears in the poisonous juice of Derketa's Apples,"

quoth Conan, with his mouthful, "and jab them in the eyes or the mouth or somewhere like that, they'd have seen that dragons are no more immortal than anything else. The carca.s.s lies at the edge of the trees, east of the city. If you don't believe me, go and look for yourself."

Olmec shook his head, hardly seeming able to credit his own ears.

"It was because of the dragons that our ancestors took refuge in Xuchotl," said he. "They dared not plunge into the forest again. Scores of them were slain and devoured by the monsters before they could reach the city?"

"Then your ancestors did not build Xuchotl?" asked Valeria.

"It was ancient when they first came into the land. How long it had stood here, not even its 331.

degenerate inhabitants knew."

"Your people came from Lake Zuad?" questioned Conan.

"Aye. Half a century ago part of the tribe of Tlazitlans rebelled against the Stygian kings and being defeated in battle, fled southward. For many weeks they wandered over desert, gra.s.slands and hills, and at last came into the great forest, a thousand fighting men with their women and children.

"It was in the forest that the dragons fell upon them and slew and devoured many, so the people fled in a frenzy of fear before them, and at last came into the plain and saw the city of Xuchotl in the midst of it.

"They camped before the city, not daring to plunge into the forest beyond, for the night was made hideous with the noise of the battling monsters who made war upon each other incessantly. But they remained in the forest.

"The people of the city shut the gates and shot arrows at them from the walls. The Tlazitlans were imprisoned on the plain, as if the ring of forest had been a great wall. For to venture into the woods would have been suicide.

"Then there came secretly to their camp one of their own blood, who, with a band of exploring soldiers had wandered into the forest long before when he was a young man. The dragons had slain all but him, and he had been admitted into the city. His name was Tolkemec " a flame lighted the dark eyes at the mention of the name, and some of the people muttered under their breath and spat. "He agreed to open the gates to the warriors. He asked but that all captives taken be delivered into his hands.

"That night he opened the gates. The warriors swarmed in and the halls of Xuchotl ran red.

Only a few hundred folk dwelt here, decaying remnants of a once great race. Tolkemec said they came from the east, from Old Kosala, when the ancestors of the Kosalans came up from the south and drove them out. They came westward and built a city here in the plain. Then after centuries, the climate changed, a forest grew where gra.s.slands had rolled, and the dragons came in bellowing herds up from the southern swamps to hem the people of the city in the ring of open plain, even as we are now hemmed.

"Well, our fathers slew the people of Xuchotl, all except a hundred which were given living into the hands of Tolkemec, who had been a slave among them, and for many days and nights the halls re-echoed to their screams under the agony of his torturing.

"So our fathers dwelt here, for awhile in peace. Tolkemec took a girl of the tribe to wife, and, 332.

because he had opened the gates, and because he knew the art of making the Xuchotl wine, and of cultivating the fruit they ate fruit which obtains its nourishment out of the air and is not planted in soil he shared the rule of the tribe with the brothers who led the rebellion and the flight Xotalanc and Tecuhltli.

"For a few years they dwelt in peace within the city. Then " Olmec's eyes rested briefly on the silent woman at his side "Tecuhltli took a woman to wife. Xotalanc desired her, and Tolkemec, who hated Xotalanc, aided Tecuhltli to steal her. Aye, she came willingly enough.

Xotalanc demanded her back, and the council of the tribe decided that the matter should be left to the woman. She chose to remain with Tecuhltli. But Xotalanc was not satisfied. There was fighting, and gradually the tribe broke up into three factions the people of Teculhtli and the people of Xotalanc. Already they had divided the city between them. Tecuhltli had the southern part of the city, Xotalanc the northern part, and Tolkemec dwelt with his family by the western gate.

"The factions fought bitterly, and Tolkemec aided first one side and then the other, betraying each faction as it pleased him. At last each faction retired to a place it could defend well. The people of Tecuhltli who had their dwellings in the chambers and halls in the southern end of the city, blocked up all doors except one on each tier, which could be easily defended. Xotalanc did the same, and so likewise did Tolkemec. But we of Tecuhltli fell on Tolkemec one night and butchered all his clan. Tolkemec we tortured for many days, and finally cast him into a dungeon to die. Somehow he managed to escape, and drag himself into the catacombs which lie beneath the city, and where lie the bodies of all the people, Xuchotlan or Tlazitlan, who ever died in the city. There without doubt, he died, and the superst.i.tious among us swear that his ghost haunts the catacombs to this day, wailing among the bones of the dead.

"Fifty years ago the feud began. I was born in it. All in this chamber, except Tascela, were born in it. Most have died in it. We are a perishing race. There were hundreds in each faction when it began. Now we number but some forty men and women. How many Xotalancas there are we do not know, but I doubt if they are more numerous than we. For fifteen years no children have been born to us, and since we have slain no children among the Xotalancas, I think it is the same with them.

"We are dying, but before we die, we hope to finish the ancient feud, and to wipe out the remnants of our enemies."

And with his weird eyes blazing, Olmec told the story of that grisly feud, fought out in silent chambers and dim halls under the gleam of green fire-jewels, on floors smoldering with the flames of h.e.l.l. Xotalanc was dead long ago, slain in a grim battle on an ivory stair. Tecuhltli was dead, flayed alive by the maddened Xotalancas who had captured him.

Olmec told of horrible battles fought in black corridors, of b.l.o.o.d.y fights waged under the 333.

gleam of the fire-jewels, of ambushes, treachery, cruelties, of tortures inflicted by both factions on helpless captives, men and women, tortures so ghastly that even the barbarous Cimmerian shrugged his shoulders. No wonder Techotl had trembled with the terror of capture.

Valeria listened spell-bound, to the tale of that hideous feud. The people of Xuchotl were obsessed with it. It was their only reason for existence. It filled their whole lives. Each expected to die in it. They remained within their barricaded quarter, occasionally stealing forth into the disputed land of empty corridors and chambers that lay between the opposite ends of the city. Sometimes they returned with frantic captives, or with grim tokens of victory in fight.