Page:Weird Tales Volume 27 Issue 01 (1936-01).djvu/74



ONAN, a barbarian adventurer who has made himself king of Aquilonia, finds himself pitted against Xaltotun, an ancient sorcerer and adept of black magic who has been dead for three thousand years. The priests who poisoned Xaltotun had mummified his body with their dark arts, keeping all his organs intact. He is revived by means of a flaming jewel, known as the Heart of Ahriman, which had been stolen from the wizard during his life.

With Xaltotun's aid, the conspirators who had brought him back from death place Tarascus on the throne of Nemedia and invade Aquilonia in an attempt to overthrow Conan and make Valerius king of Aquilonia in his place. Xaltotun causes the cliffs to fall on Conan's army and captures Conan, who is mourned as dead by his countrymen. Valerius ascends the throne of Aquilonia.

Xaltotun confines Conan, heavily chained, in the dungeons of horror beneath his palace in Belverus, capital city of Nemedia, from which he is rescued after a weird and gruesome adventure, by Zenobia, a girl of the king's seraglio, who had fallen in love with him when she saw him from a distance on his visit to the Nemedian king the year before.

The story continues:

stooped and tore the knife from the monster's breast. Then he went swiftly up the stair. What other shapes of fear the darkness held he could not guess, but he had no desire to encounter any more. This touch-and-go sort of battling was too strenuous even for the giant Cimmerian. The moonlight was fading from the floor, the darkness closing in, and something like panic pursued him up the stair. He breathed a gusty sigh of relief when he reached the head, and felt the third key turn in the lock. He opened the door slightly, and craned his neck to peer through, half expecting an attack from some human or bestial enemy.

He looked into a bare stone corridor, dimly lighted, and a slender, supple figure stood before the door.

"Your Majesty!" It was a low, vibrant cry, half in relief and half in fear. The girl sprang to his side, then hesitated as if abashed.

"You bleed," she said. "You have been hurt!"

He brushed aside the implication with an impatient hand.

"Scratches that wouldn't hurt a baby. Your skewer came in handy, though. But for it Tarascus's monkey would be cracking my shin-bones for the marrow right now. But what now?"

"Follow me," she whispered. "I will lead you outside the city wall. I have a horse concealed there."

She turned to lead the way down the corridor, but he laid a heavy hand on her naked shoulder.

"Walk beside me," he instructed her softly, passing his massive arm about her 72