“So our fathers dwelt here, for awhile in peace. Tolkemec took a girl of the tribe to wife, and, 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 superstitious 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 hell. 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 bloody fights waged under the 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. Or perhaps they did not return at all, or returned only as severed heads cast down before the bolted bronze doors. It was particularly ghastly, these people, shut off from the rest of the world, caught together like rabid rats in a trap, butchering each other through the years, crouching and creeping through the sunless corridors to maim and murder.
And while Olmec talked Valeria felt the blazing eyes of the woman Tascela fixed for ever upon her.
“And we can never leave the city,” said Olmec. “For fifty years no one has stepped outside the gate, except the victims bound and thrown forth for the dragon. And of late years even that has been discontinued. Once the dragon came from the forest to bellow about the wall. We who were born and raised here would fear to leave it, even were the dragon not there.”
“Well,” grunted Conan, “with your leave, we’ll take our chance with the dragons. This feud is none of our business, and we don’t care to get mixed up in it. If you’ll show us the south gate, we’ll be on our way.”
Tascela’s hands clenched and she started to speak, but Olmec interrupted her: “It is nearly nightfall. Wait at least until morning. If you wander forth into the plain tonight, you will certainly fall prey to the dragons.”
“We crossed it last night without seeing any,” answered Conan. “But perhaps it would be better to wait until morning. But no later than that. We wish to reach the west coast, and it’s a march of many weeks, even if we had horses.”
“We have jewels,” offered Olmec.
“Well, listen,” said Conan. “Suppose we do this: we’ll help you clean out those Xotalancas, and then we’ll all see what we can do about wiping out the dragons in the forest.”
They were showed into ornate chambers, lighted by the slot-like skylights.
“Why don’t the Xotalancas come over the roofs and shatter the glass?” Conan demanded.
“It can not be broken,” answered Techotl, who had accompanied him into his chamber. “Besides the roofs would be hard to clamber over. They are mostly spires and domes and steep ridges.”
“Who is this Tascela?” Conan asked. “Olmec’s wife?”
Techotl shuddered and glanced about him before answering.
“No. She is – Tascela! She was the wife of Xotalanc – the woman about which the feud began.”
“What are you saying?” demanded Conan. “That woman is young and beautiful. Are you trying to tell me that she was a wife fifty years ago?”
“Aye! She was a full-grown woman when the Tlazitlans journeyed from Lake Zuad. She is a witch, who possesses the knowledge of perpetual youth – but a grisly knowledge it is. I dare not say more.”
And with his finger at his lips, he glided from the chamber.
Valeria awoke suddenly on her couch. There were no fire-gems in the room, but illumination was supplied by a jewel. In the weird dusky glow of the fire-gems she saw a shadowy figure bending over her. She was aware of a delicious, sensuous langour stealing over her that was not like natural sleep. Something had touched her face, awakening her.
The sight of the dim figure roused her instantly. Even as she recognized the figure as the sullen Yasala, Tascela’s maid, she was on her feet. Yasala whirled lithely, but before she could run, Valeria caught her wrist and wrenched her around to face.
“What the devil were you doing bending over me? What’s that in your hand?”
The woman made no reply, but sought to cast the object away. Valeria twisted her arm in front of her and the thing fell to the floor – a great black exotic blossom on a jade green stem.
“The black lotus!” said Valeria between her teeth. “You were trying to drug me – if you hadn’t accidentally awkened me by touching my face with that blossom – why did you do it? What’s your game?”
Yasala maintained a sulky silence, and with an oath Valeria whirled her around, forced her to her knees and twisted her arm up behind her back.
“Tell me, or I’ll tear your arm out of the socket.”
Yasala squirmed in anguish as her arm was forced excruiatingly up between her shoulder blades, but a violent shaking of her head was the only answer she made.
“Slut!” Valeria cast her from her to sprawl on the floor. The pirate bent over her prostrate figure, her eyes blazing. Fear and the memory of Tascela’s burning eyes stirred in her, rousing all her ruthless anger and tigerish instinct of self-preservation. The chambers were as silent as if Xuchotl were in reality a deserted city. A thrill of panic throbbed through Valeria, rendering her merciless.
“You came here for no good reason,” she muttered, her eyes smoldering as it rested on the sullen figure with its lowered head. “There’s some foul mystery here – treason or intrigue. Did Tascela send you? Does Olmec know you came?”
No answer. Valeria cursed venomously and slapped the woman first on one side and then the other. The blows resounded in the room.
Valeria turned and tore a handful of cords from a nearby hanging.
“You stubborn bitch!” she said between her teeth. “I’m going to strip you naked and tie you across that couch, and whip you with my sword-belt until you tell me what you were doing here.”
“Why don’t you scream?” she asked sardonically. “Who do you fear? Tascela or Olmec, or Conan?”
“Mercy,” whispered the woman presently. “I will tell.”
Valeria released her. Yasala was quivering, her limbs and body.
“Wine,” she begged, indicating the vessel on the ivory table with a trembling hand. “Let me drink – then I will tell you.” She rose unsteadily as Valeria picked up the vessel. She took it, raised it to her lips – and then dashed the contents full into the Aquilonian’s face. Valeria reeled backward, shaking and clawing the stinging liquid out of her eyes, and her misty sight cleared enough to let her see Yasala dart across the room, fling back a bolt, throw open the door and run down the hall. The pirate was after her instantly, sword out and murder in her heart.
The woman turned a corner in the corridor and when Valeria reached it, she only an empty hall, and an open door that gaped blackly. A damp moldy scent reeked up from it, and Valeria shivered. That must be the door that led to the catacombs. Yasala had taken refuge there.
Valeria advanced to the door and looked down the flight of steps that vanished quickly into utter blackness. She shivered slightly at the thought of the thousands of corpses lying in their stone nitches down there, wrapped in their moldering cloths. She had no intention of groping her way down. Yasala doubtless knew every turn and twist of the subterranean passages. Valeria was drawing back, baffled, when a sobbing cry welled up from the blackness. Faintly human words were distinguishable, and the voice was that of a woman: “Oh, help! Help, in Set’s name! Ahhh!” It trailed away and Valeria thought she heard the echo of a fiendish tittering.
Valeria felt her skin crawl. What had happened to Yasala down there in the thick blackness? That it had been she who cried out, the pirate did not doubt. But what peril could have befallen her? Was one of the Xotalancas lurking down there? Olmec had assured them that the south end of the catacombs were walled off from the rest, too securely for their enemies to break through from that direction. Besides that tittering had not sounded like a human being at all – Valeria closed the door and hurried back down the corridor. She regained her chamber and shot the bolt behind her. She was determined to make her way to Conan’s room, and urge him to join her in an attempt to fight their way out of that city of devils. But even as she reached the door, a long-drawn scream of agony rang through the halls.
CHAPTER
It was the yelling of men and the clang of steel that brought Conan bounding from his couch, broadsword in hand and wide awake. In an instant he had reached the door and flung it open, even as Techotl rushed in, eyes blazing, sword dripping and blood streaming from a gash in the neck.
“The Yotalancas!” he croaked, his voice hardly human. “They are within the doors!”
Conan thrust past him and ran down the narrow corridors, even as Valeria emerged from her chamber.
“What the devil is it?” she called.
“Techotl says the Xotalancas are in,” he answered hurriedly. “That racket sounds like it.”
They ran into the throne-room and burst upon a wild scene of blood. Some twenty men and women, their black hair streaming, and the white skulls gleaming on their breasts, were locked in combat with a somewhat larger number of Tecuhltli. The women on both sides fought as madly as the men. Already the room was strewn with corpses, the greater number of which were Tecuhltli.
Olmec, without his robe and naked but for a breech-clout, was fighting before his throne, and as Conan and Valeria entered, Tascela ran from an inner chamber, with a sword in her hand.
The rest was a whirling nightmare of steel. The feud came to a bloody end there. The losses of the Xotalancas had been greater, their position more desperate than the Tecuhltli had realized. Driven to frenzy by the word, gasped by a dying man, that mysterious white-skinned allies had joined their enemies, they had cast all in one furious onslaught. Though how they gained entrance into Tecuhltli remained a mystery until after the battle.
It was long and savage. The surprize had aided the Xotalancas and seven of the Tecuhltli were down before they knew their foes were on them. But still they outnumbered the Xotalancas, and they too were fired by the realization that it was the death-grip at last, and heartened by the presence of their allies.
In a melee of this sort no three Tlazitlans were a match for Conan. Taller, stronger and quicker than they, he moved through the whirling mass with the surety and devastating force of a hurricane. Valeria was as strong as a man, and her quickness and ferocity outmatched any that opposed her.
Only five women were with the Xotalancas and they were down and their throats cut before Conan and Valeria reached the fighting. And presently only Tecuhltli and their allies lived in the great throne room, and the staggering, blood-stained living set up a mad howling of triumph.
“How came they in Tecuhltli?” roared Olmec, brandishing his sword.
“It was Xatmec,” stammered a warrior, wiping blood from a great gash across his shoulder. “He heard a noise and placed his ear against the door while I went to the mirrors to look. I saw the Xotalancas outside the door and one played on a pipe – Xatmec leaned frozen against the door, as if paralyzed by the strains of music that whispered through the panels.