after all?'
He strode out into the throne-room, baffled, and then, struck by asudden thought, stepped behind the throne and peered into the alcove.There was blood on the smooth marble where he had cast down thesenseless body of Gwarunga--that was all. The black man had vanished ascompletely as Yelaya.
4 The Teeth of Gwahlur
Baffled wrath confused the brain of Conan the Cimmerian. He knew no morehow to go about searching for Muriela than he had known how to go aboutsearching for the Teeth of Gwahlur. Only one thought occurred to him--tofollow the priests. Perhaps at the hiding-place of the treasure someclue would be revealed to him. It was a slim chance, but better thanwandering about aimlessly.
As he hurried through the great shadowy hall that led to the portico, hehalf expected the lurking shades to come to life behind him with rendingfangs and talons. But only the beat of his own rapid heart accompaniedhim into the moonlight that dappled the shimmering marble.
At the foot of the wide steps he cast about in the bright moonlight forsome sign to show him the direction he must go. And he found it--petalsscattered on the sward told where an arm or garment had brushed againsta blossom-laden branch. Grass had been pressed down under heavy feet.Conan, who had tracked wolves in his native hills, found noinsurmountable difficulty in following the trail of the Keshani priests.
It led away from the palace, through masses of exotic-scented shrubberywhere great pale blossoms spread their shimmering petals, throughverdant, tangled bushes that showered blooms at the touch, until he cameat last to a great mass of rock that jutted like a titan's castle outfrom the cliffs at a point closest to the palace, which, however, wasalmost hidden from view by vine-interlaced trees. Evidently thatbabbling priest in Keshia had been mistaken when he said the Teeth werehidden in the palace. This trail had led him away from the place whereMuriela had disappeared, but a belief was growing in Conan that eachpart of the valley was connected with that palace by subterraneanpassages.
Crouching in the deep velvet-black shadows of the bushes, he scrutinizedthe great jut of rock which stood out in bold relief in the moonlight.It was covered with strange, grotesque carvings, depicting men andanimals, and half-bestial creatures that might have been gods or devils.The style of art differed so strikingly from that of the rest of thevalley, that Conan wondered if it did not represent a different era andrace, and was itself a relic of an age lost and forgotten at whateverimmeasurably distant date the people of Alkmeenon had found and enteredthe haunted valley.
A great door stood open in the sheer curtain of the cliff, and agigantic dragon head was carved about it so that the open door was likethe dragon's gaping mouth. The door itself was of carven bronze andlooked to weigh several tons. There was no lock that he could see, buta series of bolts showing along the edge of the massive portal, as itstood open, told him that there was some system of locking andunlocking--a system doubtless known only to the priests of Keshan.
The trail showed that Gorulga and his henchmen had gone through thatdoor. But Conan hesitated. To wait until they emerged would probablymean to see the door locked in his face, and he might not be able tosolve the mystery of its unlocking. On the other hand, if he followedthem in, they might emerge and lock him in the cavern.
Throwing caution to the winds, he glided silently through the greatportal. Somewhere in the cavern were the priests, the Teeth of Gwahlur,and perhaps a clue to the fate of Muriela. Personal risks had never yetdeterred the Cimmerian from any purpose.
Moonlight illumined, for a few yards, the wide tunnel in which he foundhimself. Somewhere ahead of him he saw a faint glow and heard the echoof a weird chanting. The priests were not so far ahead of him as he hadthought. The tunnel debouched into a wide room before the moonlightplayed out, an empty cavern of no great dimensions, but with a lofty,vaulted roof, glowing with a phosphorescent encrustation, which, asConan knew, was a common phenomenon in that part of the world. It made aghostly half-light, in which he was able to see a bestial imagesquatting on a shrine and the black mouths of six or seven tunnelsleading off from the chamber. Down the widest of these--the one directlybehind the squat image which looked toward the outer opening--he caughtthe gleam of torches wavering, whereas the phosphorescent glow wasfixed, and heard the chanting increase in volume.
Down it he went recklessly, and was presently peering into a largercavern than the one he had just left. There was no phosphorus here, butthe light of the torches fell on a larger altar and a more obscene andrepulsive god squatting toad-like upon it. Before this repugnant deityGorulga and his ten acolytes knelt and beat their heads upon the ground,while chanting monotonously. Conan realized why their progress had beenso slow. Evidently approaching the secret crypt of the Teeth was acomplicated and elaborate ritual.
He was fidgeting in nervous impatience before the chanting and bowingwere over, but presently they rose and passed into the tunnel whichopened behind the idol. Their torches bobbed away into the nightedvault, and he followed swiftly. Not much danger of being discovered. Heglided along the shadows like a creature of the night, and the blackpriests were completely engrossed in their ceremonial mummery.Apparently they had not even noticed the absence of Gwarunga.
Emerging into a cavern of huge proportions, about whose upward curvingwalls gallery-like ledges marched in tiers, they began their worshipanew before an altar which was larger, and a god which was moredisgusting, than any encountered thus far.
Conan crouched in the black mouth of the tunnel, staring at the wallsreflecting the lurid glow of the torches. He saw a carven stone stairwinding up from tier to tier of the galleries; the roof was lost indarkness.
He started violently and the chanting broke off as the kneeling blacksflung up their heads. An inhuman voice boomed out high above them. Theyfroze on their knees, their faces turned upward with a ghastly blue huein the sudden glare of a weird light that burst blindingly up near thelofty roof and then burned with a throbbing glow. That glare lighted agallery and a cry went up from the high priest, echoed shudderingly byhis acolytes. In the flash there had been briefly disclosed to them aslim white figure standing upright in a sheen of silk and a glint ofjewel-crusted gold. Then the blaze smoldered to a throbbing, pulsingluminosity in which nothing was distinct, and that slim shape was buta shimmering blue of ivory.
'Yelaya!' screamed Gorulga, his brown features ashen. 'Why have youfollowed us? What is your pleasure?'
That weird unhuman voice rolled down from the roof, re-echoing underthat arching vault that magnified and altered it beyond recognition.
'Woe to the unbelievers! Woe to the false children of Keshia! Doom tothem which deny their deity!'
A cry of horror went up from the priests. Gorulga looked like a shockedvulture in the glare of the torches.
'I do not understand!' he stammered. 'We are faithful. In the chamber ofthe oracle you told us--'
'Do not heed what you heard in the chamber of the oracle!' rolled thatterrible voice, multiplied until it was as though a myriad voicesthundered and muttered the same warning. 'Beware of false prophets andfalse gods! A demon in my guise spoke to you in the palace, giving falseprophecy. Now harken and obey, for only I am the true goddess, and Igive you one chance to save yourselves from doom!
'Take the Teeth of Gwahlur from the crypt where they were placed so longago. Alkmeenon is no longer holy, because it has been desecrated byblasphemers. Give the Teeth of Gwahlur into the hands of Thutmekri, theStygian, to place in the sanctuary of Dragon and Derketo. Only this cansave Keshan from the doom the demons of the night have plotted. Take theTeeth of Gwahlur and go: return instantly to Keshia; there give thejewels to Thutmekri, and seize the foreign devil Conan and flay himalive in the great square.'
There was no hesitation in obeying. Chattering with fear the priestsscrambled up and ran for the door that opened behind the bestial god.Gorulga led the flight. They jammed briefly in the doorway, yelping aswildly waving torches touched squirming black bodies; they plungedthrough, and the patter of their speeding feet dwindled dow
n the tunnel.
Conan did not follow. He was consumed with a furious desire to learn thetruth of this fantastic affair. Was that indeed Yelaya, as the coldsweat on the backs of his hands told him, or was it that little hussyMuriela, turned traitress after all? If it was--
Before the last torch had vanished down the black tunnel he was boundingvengefully up the stone stair. The blue glow was dying down, but hecould still make out that the ivory figure stood motionless on thegallery. His blood ran cold as he approached it, but he did nothesitate. He came on with his sword lifted, and towered like a threat ofdeath over the inscrutable shape.
'Yelaya!' he snarled. 'Dead as she's been for a thousand years! Ha!'
From the dark mouth of a tunnel behind him a dark form lunged. But thesudden, deadly rush of unshod feet had reached the Cimmerian's quickears. He whirled like a cat and dodged the blow aimed murderously at hisback. As the gleaming steel in the
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