Conan the Hunter Part 13

Madesus nodded, unsurprised. "This sort of place would be ideal for a Mutare. As for the guards, they would be more likely to sense the pa.s.sing of a gentle breeze than the pa.s.sing of a Mutare. The Mutare are masters of stealth and guile; you could pa.s.s by the priestess on the street and take no notice of her. Know you aught else of these buildings, Kailash?"

The burly hillman shook his head. "Nay, they are a mystery even to the longest-bearded of our loremasters. I have the feeling that we are about to find out more than I care to know!"

Conan interrupted brusquely. "Let us go, then! I would soon make good on my oath to Salvorus, before our beards grow as long as your loremaster's." He strode toward the polished copper doors, flinging them open with little exertion. Kailash laughed gustily and followed, with Madesus at his side.

The priest directed Conan to the ruins, near the center of the city. A short wall had been raised around the old structures and was crumbling in a few places along the street that ran alongside it. Even in the morning sun, the, ruins were a somewhat gloomy place. Several tall buildings, still intact, cast long shadows over the street; many of the lower buildings were cloaked so that the sunlight never even touched their stone walls. The style of construction was foreign in all of Brythunia.

Some unnameable aspect of the place set Conan's nerves on edge.

Kailash's tale of the hauntings and deaths had sparked the barbarian's instinctive dread of the supernatural. He was determined to be wary in this place. Reflexively, he freed his blade and carried it openly.

Kailash quickly followed suit. Only Madesus remained calm, undisturbed by the shadows and the tales of ancient curses.

The patrol of guardsmen detected their presence quickly, and were sent on their way by Kailash. The street became very quiet as the sounds of the patrol's retreating boots on the hard stone pavement faded in the distance. The sigmoidal street curved around the ruins. In a quarter of an hour, the three men had traveled halfway along its length. Madesus called a halt to examine one of the buildings.

It stood back less than sixty paces, beyond a large crack in the short stone wall. A tall tower with a crumbling turret stood next to it, almost completely s.h.i.+elding the old temple from the sunlight. One corner was visible from the street. Its decaying stonework and shape indicated its origin, older than the reckoning of venerable sages. Its weathered gray walls were not menacing, and what remained of the stone carvings was too faint to identify which deity the temple's wors.h.i.+pers had paid homage to.

Madesus studied the building, then pointed it out to Conan and Kailash.

The Cimmerian pa.s.sed through the crack in the wall. It was so short that it did not even rise to the level of his shoulders. He scanned the nearby buildings carefully, but saw nothing out of place. He gestured to Kailash and Madesus, who came forward.

In a barely audible voice, Madesus spoke to the two men. "If you must speak, do so only in the faintest of whispers. Once we reach the building, let me lead. If we find the priestess, do not look her in her eyes. The temptation will be strong, but if you succ.u.mb, you will find those eyes as deadly as the fangs of a venomous serpent. With the amulet, I will s.h.i.+eld us all with what protection I can."

Conan nodded. "How will you destroy her?"

"With the amulet. Its light, of which you have seen only a glimmer, will dissolve her like fog in the morning sunlight. Your blades might cleave her flesh, but she has no life blood in her veins for you to spill. It was written that only a Mutare with living blood in its veins may be slain by steel. This is a riddle, since by nature, the Mutare have no living blood in their veins.

"Against the light, she has no choice but to flee. If she flees, you must try to stop her. She can be held, though in holding her, you may be wounded, or even killed. If she tries to touch me, the amulet will repel her. This is why I must lead. If we can trap her, she will be doomed. We cannot allow her to escape!"

Kailash gritted his teeth and cursed under his breath. "A plague on these creatures! I would as soon confront a Turanian horde bare-handed than walk blindly into the den of this lioness, knowing I can do nothing against her."

Conan grunted in agreement, knowing exactly how the hillman felt.

Madesus followed the two men to the temple as they trod upon the remains of an old path that led to a large stone door. Conan circled the building, noting that it had five irregularly sized walls, not four as he had at first thought. Five long, low steps led up to the large door, the only visible entrance. Closer inspection revealed why this building had lasted so long; its walls and steps were made of hard gray marble. The elements had worn the stone to a dull finish, but only a few chips and cracks had worked their way into the tough rock.

Conan gestured toward the door, and Madesus nodded. The Cimmerian moved quietly up the steps, scrutinizing the huge stone portal. He examined it with puzzlement, noting that there were no handles. It was half again his height, more than ten feet tall, and nearly as wide. The temple itself was short; its roof was only a few feet from the top of the door. Conan began hunting for a way inside.

Kailash joined Conan while Madesus stood by, looking around. Even on the building's doorstep, the priest could not feel the Mutare's presence. He concentrated, trying to pick up any trace of the evil, but the effort was fruitless. He began to wonder if this was the right building, or if the pool and his dreams had somehow misled him. Then he brushed the doubts aside. This had to be the place. Some forgotten art had imbued the very stone with the power to block his sight.

After several minutes of thorough searching, Conan and Kailash had found no way to open the door. Conan was ready to put his shoulder to it and force it, but as he opened his mouth to speak, a loud click issued from the top step to the left of the door, followed by a low, grating noise as the portal opened. Conan could see a narrow track in the floor beneath the door, along which the marble door was sliding to the right. Behind it, he could see a huge bronze handle set in the stone, protruding from the back of the door.

Instantly alerted, Kailash darted to one side, readying his sword and putting his back to the outer wall. Conan did likewise, moving to the other side. Madesus reached into his tunic, lifting out his amulet and wrapping the chain around his hand. Now he sensed her presence, faint but definite, wafting out of the open doorway like a far-off scent of decay. Steeling himself, he peered into the shadowy darkness beyond the slowly opening portal.

In the dim light, he saw a s.p.a.cious inner chamber, a veritable auditorium running the entire length and breadth of the building.

Opposite the door, where two of the walls joined, was a large, oddly shaped block of stone; Madesus supposed it was an altar of some sort.

Rows of unusually shaped stone benches rose from the floor between the door and the block. Their backs were very high, made of bronze wrought into strange designs, and set directly into the stone benches. Aside from more carvings on the walls, there were no other features in the room. The inner arrangement left little doubt that it was indeed a temple. Madesus squinted at the carvings, trying to make them out, but the light was too poor. Drawing in his breath, he stepped across the threshold into the temple.

Conan and Kailash followed, but Conan was still trying to determine what had caused the door to open. The step where the click had come from was depressed slightly, as if stepped on, but the Cimmerian was certain that neither he nor Kailash had done so. His mind continued to work on this puzzle as he stood behind the priest, looking around. The high ceiling was darker than the skin of a Kus.h.i.+te, and the benches squatted menacingly, like short beasts of bronze and stone, ready to strike at anything within their reach. He looked over at Kailash, whose brow was already beaded with nervous sweat. Conan's own keen senses told him also that danger lurked here.

As the three men studied the auditorium, Conan heard another click from the top step outside. He whirled to face the door, watching with astonishment as it began sliding shut. Grasping one of the ornamental bronze backs attached to a bench, he wrenched it free. Kailash spun around and dashed toward the door, reaching for the bronze handle with his free hand. He got there before Conan and grasped the handle, pulling it back in a desperate effort to keep the door open.

Unfortunately, he was outweighed by the ma.s.sive portal, which slowed only a little from his efforts.

Conan jammed his chunk of bronze into the path of the closing door.

Ancient metal groaned from the pressure, bending with a metallic screech. The door continued to slow down with only a few handspans of open s.p.a.ce left. The barbarian placed his foot against the doorjamb and wrapped his open hand around the bronze handle, trying to help Kailash pull the door back open. The combined might of hillman and Cimmerian was more than the aged bronze could bear. The handle snapped off the door with a loud crack. Kailash held it in his hand, looking at it and cursing.

Conan tried to force the door back by pus.h.i.+ng directly against its stone edge. He heaved against it, muscles knotting from the effort.

Kailash threw his weight into it, straining and sweating. The door closed with a stony thud. They gave up, leaning back against the temple wall, gasping for breath from the exertion. Madesus shrugged, untroubled that they were shut inside the temple, with no way out.

"Save your strength," he said in a tone of grim determination. "We may be trapped, but if we are, so is she. No doubt there is a trick to opening the door. If we search long enough, we will find it. We must find her instead. I sense her presence faintly, so she must be nearby.

There must be another exit or doorway somewhere. Let us seek it!"

"I'll look along this wall, Kai-" Conan began, but Madesus quickly cut him off.

"Hus.h.!.+ Do not speak his name, or any of our names! If she can hear us, she will use our names against us. Your name forms an invisible link to you; it opens a c.h.i.n.k in the psychic armor that protects your mind from her insidious spells."

Kailash and Conan looked at the priest quizzically, but Madesus was in no mood to explain this strange statement further. The priest spoke a few soft words in a strange tongue, and the amulet in his hand flared up brightly, illuminating the room. Conan moved along one wall, while Kailash took another. They found nothing along the walls, and simultaneously they reached the stone block. Madesus walked between the rows of benches, heading straight for the block.

As he neared it, he identified it as an altar to Targol, an obscure and strange G.o.d with even stranger wors.h.i.+pers. As far as Madesus knew, the Targolian religion had not existed for over five centuries. Targol had been described as a harsh, cruel G.o.d, demanding much from his followers and giving little in return. In spite of this, the priesthood of Targol had once been a powerful force, albeit a neutral one, indifferent to current events and politics. Yet Madesus recalled a tale of what had happened in ancient Zamboula to the priests of Yog, who had tried to ban the wors.h.i.+p of Targol in their city. One by one they had disappeared without a trace, until none remained. Later, their fully clothed skeletons had been found heaped in a pit.

Madesus examined the altar, momentarily distracted by his curiosity about the Targolian religion. He brushed at a layer of fine dust covering some faint runes etched in the altar. Mo ments later, a drowsy feeling settled over him; he found concentration difficult. The light from his amulet began to dim, and he blinked, trying to focus his eyes on Conan and Kailash and tell them about Targol. Kailash was standing to the right of the altar, near Madesus, frozen in place with a gla.s.sy stare. Madesus tried to move toward the hillman and awaken him, but his feet felt like leaden bricks. The priest realized that he and Kailash were paralyzed.

Conan had begun searching the stone block, which rose to waist level on him. It was oblong and five-sided, like much of the temple's architecture. He noticed a pattern of curving sc.r.a.pe marks on the floor by the base of the block. He was about to tell his companions of this when a wave of exhaustion rolled over him. The Cimmerian shook his head to clear the haze, and yawned. Even after this, he felt unnaturally tired, so he rubbed his face. The room darkened... no, it was Madesus's amulet dimming. He thought about leaning against the block and resting briefly. When was the last time he had slept? It felt like days ago, or weeks. He slumped against the block, his sword slipping from his gasp.

The razor-sharp blade clanged against the altar and nicked his calf on its way down. Conan's mind cleared instantly as a thin trickle of blood ran down his s.h.i.+n. His heart pounded at the sight of Madesus and Kailash, slumped against the altar. They were dozing with glazed, open eyes that stared with an eerie blankness. The amulet still dangled from Madesus's hand, but its light had faded to an almost imperceptible glow. Instantly alerted, Conan picked up his sword and moved over to Madesus, shaking him. The priest would not awaken; his lips moved, but no sound came forth.

Deciding on his course of action quickly, Conan used his blade to cut carefully along Madesus's exposed forearm, until blood welled out of it. The priest quickly woke up, startled, and his amulet brightened.

The Cimmerian strode purposefully toward Kailash, pulled back his sleeve, and made a small cut along the hillman's arm. Kailash, still holding on to his sword somehow, jerked and took a swing at Conan, who deftly ducked the blade as Kailash gathered his wits and checked his motion.

"What in the name of Wiccana-" the hillman blurted out, then got a grip on himself. "What happened to us?"

Madesus's face tightened in anger. "Already she is toying with us. Oh, this one is crafty, more dangerous than I thought." He let out a low chuckle, then pointed to a fine layer of dust surrounding the altar.

The dust was now disturbed in several places. Madesus held up his hands, still chuckling. "Look at your hands."

Conan and Kailash opened their palms and examined them, their eyes widening in surprise at the light purple stains that covered them.

"Powder from the blossoms of the purple lotus," said Madesus softly, as he looked at his own palms. "Just a thin layer, not enough for us to detect, but enough to send us into a drugged, sleepy paralysis. Have a care not to touch the altar again. I wonder, what fate did she have in store for us while we slept? Fortunate that we did not get more of the dust on us, or the lotus-spell would have resisted the sword-cuts."

"Look here," Conan said, pointing at the sc.r.a.pe marks he had seen earlier.

Kailash studied the marks. "This stone swings open, in the same direction as those curves. If you push against it from the other side, it may just slide aside."

Madesus held his amulet close to the altar, moving it around so as to cast a more direct light.

"Why not make it as bright as you did in Eldran's chambers?" Kailash asked.'

"Already I have used a great deal of energy today, for the healing. As even you could not carry a sackful of heavy stones over your head for hours, I cannot keep the amulet so bright for hours. Wait-look at the bottom corner." Madesus pointed down, by Conan's foot.

Conan bent and squinted, then he saw it. A small corner at the base of the altar was conspicuously bare of the purple lotus dust. He was about to press against it, but Kailash halted him.

"Hold a moment," the hillman said, thrusting his sword into his belt and rummaging through his leather pack. "Here. Let me try." He extracted a pair of thick leather gloves from the pack and pulled them on. Conan stood aside as Kailash reached down and pushed against the corner. The altar slid aside easily, as though well oiled, making only a faint grating sound against the hard stone floor. Beneath it, a dark shaft plunged into the floor, with steep stone steps leading down.