Conan stepped through the grille and confronted the wheel. He drew a deep breath, set his burly shoulders to it, and put a surge of strength behind it. Metal groaned under pressure. Conan's boots slid and grated on the stone floor.
He relaxed, took several deep breaths, and tried again. The sinews writhed across his back and shoulders. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, tortured metal squeaked and groaned. Dust and dislodged particles of dirt pattered down. The wheel moved a fingerbreadth, then a fingerbreadth more, with a shriek of metal forced into motion after aeons of inactivity.
Again Conan strained at the wheel., gripping the spokes so fiercely that it almost seemed as if his white-knuckled fingers would sink into the bronze. He heaved until the blood pounded in his temples and roared in his ears. The wheel lurched and revolved several inches. Within the wall somewhere, ponderous counterweights boomed into motion.
Across the chamber, a crack of light appeared between the valves of the great bronze door.
Another heave, and the motion of the wheel became suddenly easier. From beyond the wall came the growl and rumble of the ancient mechanism, forced into motion after so many quiet centuries.
The crack between the doors widened. With a clank of engaging machinery, the wheel began to spin of its own accord, faster and faster. The valves of the bronze door swung wide on screaming hinges. The dragons, which had been peering and shuffling about uneasily as these unaccustomed noises came to their ears, turned toward the opening doors.
Beyond the doors, a steep ramp led up, then turned sharply out of sight. Light came down from above - good, strong daylight. Conan inferred that another pair of doors at the top of the ramp had opened at the same time. These must be in the base of the pyramid or in one of the buildings surrounding the square.
As Conan, gasping for breath, collapsed over the wheel, the dragons, emitting excited bellows, waddled through the open doors. With claws scraping and slipping on the ramp, they poured up the slope and out of sight. From the dark mouths of the tunnels that opened into the chamber, more dragons appeared, roused from their long slumbers by the noise of the mechanism and the roars of their fellows. These joined the procession up the ramp, until forty-odd of the creatures had passed out of sight on their way to the upper world whence a sudden chorus of horrified shrieks wafted faintly down into the chamber.
Still panting, Conan lay against the bottom of the bronze wheel, waiting for his heart to slow down from its wild pounding and smiling grimly through his stiff, gray beard.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE CRYSTAL TALISMAN
The horror from the primal slime lived on
to slake its fiendish lust,
When bright Atlantis fell to dust
beneath the trampling hooves of time.
- The Visions of Epemitreus
As Conan heaved on the great bronze wheel in the passage below the square of the pyramid, a crack appeared in the painted plaster that covered the vertical wall of the bay in the side of the pyramid. The plaster broke into fragments which showered down on the pavement at the feet of the drumming, chanting priests. The bronze doors, which the plaster had masked, groaned and squealed as they swung slowly outwards, even as their mates, the similar doors in the chamber of the dragons below, were opening.
The chant died away to silence as the priests backed away from the opening door valves. They stared at one another; questions flew back and forth. Behind the priests, the thousands of Antillians, from the humble artisans standing in the square to the nobility on the tiers of benches, also shifted uneasily. They stood on tiptoe, peered, and questioned.
On top of the pyramid, the sacrificer paused in the midst of his sacrifices, just as he was about to decardiate the stout foreign ruffian with the graying reddish beard. He leaned over and shouted down a question, which was lost in the gathering hubbub.
A tremendous hiss came from the dark interior behind the opening doors. Out into the sunlight shambled the first of the dragons to reach the top of the ramp - fifty feet of slate-gray scales, waddling briskly on bowed, muscular legs and splayed., long-toed feet. Its raised head swiveled from side to side as its great, green eyes, their pupils contracted to slits by the glare, took in the scene around it. From the tip of its long, crocodilian snout, a yard of pink, forked tongue flicked out.
Screaming, the ranks of the chanting priests broke. The priests fought their way into the crowd of common Antillians, who in turn surged away from the doors. In the panic push, men and women were thrown down and the life was trampled out of them.
One priest tripped on his feathered robe and fell. Before he could recover, the jaws of the dragon slammed shut upon him. The reptile raised its head. Then it jerked its head back several times, while the elastic skin of its throat swelled and shrank with gulping motions. With each jerk, the priest slid further into its jaws, until only his feet, still wearing their gilded stilt shoes, were visible. A final jerk and gulp, and the dragon's throat bulged as its prey slid down its gullet.
Meanwhile other dragons, with tongues flickering and jaws opening to emit their groaning roars, crowded past the first. There seemed to be no end to the procession. They scrambled across the pavement and plunged into the screaming, clawing mass of Antillians. Some people were crushed beneath the monsters' clawed feet; others were knocked about like dolls by casual swings of huge, scaly tails. Blood lay in puddles and ran into the gutters in sticky scarlet streams. Everywhere., dragons paused to raise their heads and gulp down their prey before plunging on after another mouthful.
Meanwhile, high up od the side of the red-and-black pyramid, a small door opened. Conan stepped out, carrying the sword of black glass with which the guard had been armed. The salt wind from the sea whipped his shaggy gray mane. He expanded his huge chest to take in a lungful of clean, fresh air, welcome after the stenches of the charnel cavern world below.
After he had opened the gates that loosed the reptilian horde upon the people of Ptahuacan, he had mounted the stone stair that slanted up from the platform in the wall of the dragon chamber. Other passages branched off horizontally from this tunnel. But Conan, reasoning that the sacrifice should be taking place on top of the pyramid and that the steepest passageway would bring him out closest to that place, continued on up, until he had come to the door from which he just emerged.
For an instant he stood staring down, watching with grim satisfaction the scene of havoc and madness below. Some of the dragons had reached the tiers of stone benches where the nobles and higher priests had sat. They were lurching up and down these benches, pursuing and capturing screaming, befeathered fugitives.
From his height, Conan could see along the streets that let out of the square. Each of these streets now bore a stream of madly running fugitives. Some darted into the first open door they reached, to slam and bar it against later arrivals. Others kept running until they passed through the city gates and straggled out into the countryside.
Craning his neck in the other direction, Conan looked up to the top of the pyramid. Here, where rose the temple of Xotli, knots of men struggled. The colors of their skins told Conan that some of these were his own crew, battling with priests and guards.
Then Conan became aware of a figure standing near him on one of the stairways that led to the top of the pyramid. This was the gaunt old hierarch himself, recognizable by the splendor of his feathered robe - now torn -and his golden ornaments. His plumed headpiece was gone, and blood ran down one side of his head. Leaning forward, he gesticulated frantically with his skinny brown arms, screaming commands to the milling soldiers and priests below.
At the base of the pyramid directly below the hierarch, one of the dragons looked up, its pink tongue feeling the air. Then the monster began to claw its way up the stair.
A wicked grin wrinkled Oman's bearded face. Thrusting his glass sword through his belt, he vaulted to the next higher level of the yard-high steps that made up the pyramid. He stepped softly along the step until he came to the
stair on which the hierarch stood, behind and above that personage. Without a word, he placed both hands on the small of the archpriest's back and gave a terrific shove.
The hierarch shot out from the surface of the pyramid in an arc and struck the steps lower down. He rolled over and over in a whirl of brown limbs and green feathers, until he reached the dragon coming up from below. A loud chomp, and the jaws dosed upon the age-old master of Antillia.
The high priest's skull-like head jerked frantically; his bony fists beat futilely against the scaly jaws. Then, as one of the saber-like fangs reached a vital organ, the body relaxed. The high priest's screams ceased; his head and limbs hung limply. Squatting at the base of the pyramid, the dragon settled down to the agreeable task of swallowing its catch whole.
Up on top of the pyramid, Yasunga still swung his chains like a flail, while sweat ran down his ebony hide. Another pirate and a priest rolled over and over on the pavement, hands locked on each other's throats. Milo the boatswain had tangled a soldier's halberd in his chains and strove to hold the weapon down, while the soldier struggled to wrench it loose. Artanes the Zamorian fought two Antillians at once with a captured pike, which he wielded like a quarterstaff. Sigurd struggled to unlock the manacles and neck-rings of some of the pirates, while others fended off the attempts of a few priests and soldiers to get to him and recover the keys. Many of the Antillians had fled from the top of the pyramid, but some still struggled with their former captives.
With a booming war cry, Conan bounded up the steps and hurled himself into the fray. In his mail shirt, he was easily a match for any three of the little brown men. An Aatillian head went flying from its body to bounce and roll down the steps of the pyramid. Another man of Ptahuacan collapsed in a mess of spilled entrails. Another clutched, screaming, at the stump of a hand.
Their eyes big with superstitious terror, the Antillians gave back before Conan, who lunged hither and thither like a razor-edged whirlwind, constantly shifting his position so that it was hard for an opponent to get a good cut or thrust at him. If he was not so agile as he had been decades before., his attack was still the most awesome thing the Antillians had ever seen.
'A demon! He is a demon!' they cried, backing away.
Soon nobody stood between Conan, bloody glass sword in hand, and the knot around Sigurd. The Northman looked up.
'Amral' roared Sigurd. 'By Crom and Mitra and all the gods, we thought you dead!'
'Not yet, Redbeard! I still have some killing to do.' Conan clapped the stout Vanr on one shoulder. 'What's here?'
'I'm trying to get these damned rings unlocked, but it takes an expert touch. Can you do it faster, ere they rush us again?'
'The key's too slow,' growled Conan. 'Let's see if glass will cut glass. Stretch that chain across the altar stone.'
The glass of the swords and that of the chains, he thought, were basically the same material. But, just as the steel of a sword is more finely tempered than the iron of an ordinary chain, so the glass of his sword might be superior to that of the glass chains. Whereas a chain must merely hold, a sword must cut. Well, he would put it to the test.
His sword flashed in the afternoon sun as he swung it above his iron-gray head. The blade whistled down, with all the power of his huge muscles behind it, to strike the altar surface with a crash. A link of the chain shattered beneath the blow, the flying shards sparkling like diamonds.
'Now the next!' cried Conan.
Chain after chain was severed, until all the pirates who were still chained were free. As they were released, they looked around for dropped weapons to snatch up before plunging back into the fray. The remaining priests and soldiers on the top of the pyramid fled with cries of despair, abandoning still more weapons to their attackers.
Conan looked below. The unleashed monsters had proved an effective diversion, engaging the attention of most of the Antillians and enabling Conan to free his shipmates while the number of enemies still on top of the pyramid was too small to interfere.
The square was now mostly clear. Here and there a dragon lumbered about the pavement, chasing a scampering fugitive. The soldiers who had not fled in the general exodus stood in solid clumps, forming hedgehogs of leveled spears to hold off the dragons. Priests moved among the soldiers, directing and exhorting them.
Most of the dragons, too, had fled the square. All had fed - some several times over - and their present desire was to find a quiet spot to sink into digestive torpor. Some lurched along the streets of the city after the fleeing multitudes, out through the gates and across the cornfields and vegetable gardens of the Antillians. Some plodded down to the harbor, slipped into the water, and swam with serpentine undulations along the cost. Even as Conan watched, the last pair of dragons waddled out of the square.
The priests now began directing the soldiers remaining in the square, and putting them into formation. Some priests pointed to the top of the pyramid and shouted to others, urging an attack on the pirates. Soon, several hundred littie brown warriors had been formed into ranks and files, facing the pyramid from all sides. Several soldiers trotted into the square, lugging baskets full of the Antillians' glass globes containing the soporific gas.
Conan's eyes narrowed in grim estimation. Now that the dragons were no longer fighting on the side of the pirates, he did not doubt that the well-drilled hosts of Ptahuacan would give a good account of themselves. Perhaps this square would see the end of him and his band. At least, the gods would be treated to one hell of a magnificent last stand.
'Can we break them, Lion?' rumbled Sigurd. He slapped his bare chest and hefted a crystal cutlass. 'Bowels of Nergal and breasts of Ishtar, but I be spoiling for a fight with those little brown bastards! After days in the stinking Jakes they call a dungeon, feeding on cold swill, 'twill delight me to smash a few heads and rip out a few guts ere I fall. Say the word, comrade; we all be ready!'
Conan nodded, his eyes smoldering. He was about to lift his sword and lead the corsairs in one last, glorious charge down the stairs of the pyramid, to burst through those glittering ranks or go down before the glass-bladed weapons...
But an ominous shadow fell upon him. He looked up into the hovering, swirling cloud of blackness that was the Demon from Beyond.
Crom! How could he have forgotten this evil thing from the spaces between the stars? The gory ritual that had summoned it into this world, from whatever unholy dimension it dwelt in, had given it shape and substance within this realm of matter. Even the disruption of the ceremony, while it may have weakened the being, had not dissolved its physical existence or broken the mighty spells that gave it life in the world of man.
It had clung, brooding, above the scenes of tumult and slaughter, viewing with cold malignancy the destruction of the Antillians and the freeing of the victims destined for its supernatural feast. Now its inhuman intelligence had moved it into action. As it hung, pulsing, above the pirate crew, it sent tentacles of mental force probing downward from its dark, turbulent center.
To Conan, it was as if icy, impalpable fingers pierced the secret places of his mind, pawing through his memories like a freebooter ransacking a temple in some conquered city. He felt the touch of alien thoughts, penetrating the roots of his inmost soul. All his vigorous manhood rebelled against this mental violation.
In the strangest battle of his life, he fought against the mind-probing tendrils of darkness. Here in this realm of thought., mind alone battled against mind. No plate armor of tempered steel or shield of iron-bound oak and tanned bull's hide could resist, no iron blade or muscular arm could repel the mental tentacles that insinuated themselves into his brain.
Conan felt these searching antennae fingering and deadening the power centers of his brain., so that an icy numbness spread over his body. Little by little, his limbs lost their strength until he could barely stand.
But he fought on, grimly clinging to life and consciousness with all the ferocious tenacity of his primitive background. Never had he thought of usin
g his mind thus as a weapon. Yet he was conscious of his mind's lashing out in a mental struggle with the insidious, gliding tendrils of the alien intelligence that sought to destroy his life course. He felt his mind strike out at the slithering tentacles of the mind called Xotli, tearing them loose from his centers of mental energy.
With deadly swiftness, the otherworldly mind turned to a different kind of attack. Its tentacles attacked the centers of his physical consciousness and began draining vital energy from him. His sight dimmed; his consciousness blurred. The white plaster on the front of the little temple atop the pyramid turned yellow, and invisible bells rang in his ears. He felt himself slipping away, falling down a well into cold blackness ...
But still he fought on, striving to shield his mind from the thing that sucked the life force from him.
In the roaring whirlpool of his struggling mind, a dim wisp of memory rose to the turbulent surface of his consciousness. He recalled standing in spirit form in the black heart of Mount Golamira, while the splendid specter of the sage Epemitreus spoke to him. Once more he heard the voice of the ancient philisopher, whispering: And one gift alone I may give you. Bear it through every trial, for in your Hour of greatest need it will be your salvation. Nay, I can tell you naught more. In time of need, your heart will tell you how to use this talisman.
Dimly, Conan remembered the coldly glittering thing he had found in his hand upon awakening from the prophetic dream., in the silence of his royal bedchamber - the jeweled talisman he had worn on a silver chain about his neck ever since, through all his subsequent adventures.
The strength had drained from his huge limbs, but he still bore within him the unquenchable vitality that had brought him through so many deadly perils in the course of his long and action-filled life. Now, in this hour of his greatest peril on earth, he called upon his hidden resources.
One massive, scarred hand rose to his throat, pulled the crystal phoenix out from beneath his mail shirt, and broke the chain with a jerk.
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