Abruptly Conan became aware of what had coalesced in the mists above and behind the altar. A great golden serpent head reared there, surrounded by long tentacles like the rays of the sun. The auricscaled body stretched into the blackness beyond the mists, and the ruby eyes that regarded Imhep-Aton were knowing.
The Stygian had time for one horrified look, and then the great serpent struck faster than a lightning bolt. Those long, golden tentacles seized the screaming man, lifted him high. The tentacles seemed but to hold, almost caressingly, but Imhep-Aton’s shrieks welded Conans’ joints and froze his marrow. The man sounded as if something irrevocably irretrievable were being ripped from him. Eater of Souls, Conan thought, and shuddered.
The tentacles shifted their grip, now encircling and entwining, covering Imhep-Aton from head to feet, tightening. His shrieks continued for a disturbingly long time, long after blood began to ooze between the tentacles like juice squeezed from a ripe fruit, long after there should have been no breath or lungs left to scream with. The bloody bundle was tossed aside, to strike the mosaic floor with a sound like a sack of wet cloth. Conan avoided looking at it. Instead, he concentrated on the pendant hanging from his fist.
“Thou commanded me,” a voice hissed in Conan’s head, and he knew it was the great serpent, god or demon, which mattered little at the moment, speaking to Amanar. “Thou growest above thyself.”
Conan stared at the hand holding the pendant. The grim god of his Cimmerian northcountry, Crom, Lord of the Mound, gave a man only life and will. What he did with them, or failed to do, was up to him alone. Life and will.
“Thy servant begs thee to forgive him,” Amanar said smoothly, but the smoothness slipped as the serpent’s mind-talk went on.
“No, Amanar. Thou hast passed thy time. Remove the amulet, and prostrate thyself for thy god’s feeding.” life and will. Will.
“No!” Amanar shouted. He clutched the chest of his black robe. “I wear the amulet still. You cannot touch me, Eater of Souls.”
“Thou defieth me!” The serpent shape swayed toward Amanar, tentacles reaching, and recoiling.
Will. The soul pendant. Eater of Souls. Will.
“Crom!” Conan shouted, and convulsively he hurled the pendant toward the great serpent. Time seemed to flow like syrup, the pendant to float spinning in air.
A long scream burst from Amanar’s throat. “Nooooo!”
The golden serpent head moved lazily, hungrily, the fanged mouth opening, bifurcate tongue flicking out to gather in the pendant, swallowing.
Despair drove Amanar’s shriek up in pitch. Then another scream came, a hissing scream that sounded in the mind. On the altar Velita convulsed and went limp. Conan felt his bones turning to mush.
A bar of blue fire burst from the chest of the black-robed sorcerer, tearing his robe asunder, to connect him with the great golden god-demon. In unison their screams rose, Amanar’s and Morath-Aminee’s, higher, higher, drilling the brain, boring into bone and gristle. Then Amanar was a living statue of blue fire, but screaming still, and the great golden form of Morath-Aminee was awash with blue flame for all that length stretching into infinity. And that scream, too, continued, a sibilant shriek in the mind, wrenching at the soul.
The man’s cry ended, and Conan looked up to find that Amanar was gone, leaving but a few greasy ashes and a small pool of molten metal. But Morath-Aminee still burned, and now the great blue flaming form thrashed in its agony. It thrashed, and the mountains trembled.
Cracks opened across the ceiling of the room, and the floor tilted and pitched like a ship in a storm at sea. Fighting to maintain his balance, Conan hurried to the black marble altar, beneath the very burning form of the god-demon in its death-throes. Velita was unconscious. Swiftly the Cimmerian cut her loose and, throwing her naked form across his shoulder, he ran. The ceiling of the sacrificial chamber thundered down as he ran clear, and dirt filled the air of the passage. The mountain shook still, ever more and more violently, twisting, yawing. Conan ran.
In the keep above, he found madness. Columns fell and dark towers toppled, long gaps were opened in the great outer wall, and in the midst of it all the S’tarra killed anything that moved, including each other.
The massive Cimmerian ran for the gate, his shimmering blade working its murderous havoc among those S’tarra which dared face him. Behind him Amanar’s tower, flame roaring from its top as from a furnace, cracked down one side and fell into a thousand shards of obsidian stone. The ground shook like a mad thing as Conan fought to the gate.
The portcullis stood open, and as Conan started through, the lissome dancing girl still suspended across his broad shoulder, the barbican door burst open. Haranides hurried out, tulwar in hand and dark face bloodied, followed by half a dozen men in Zamoran armor.
“I held the gate for a time,” he shouted above the din of earthquake and slaughter, “but then it was all we could do to keep from being shaken into jelly. At least the accursed lizards became too busy filling each other to pay us any mind. What madness has taken them?”
“No time!” Conan shouted back. “Run, before the mountain comes down on us.”
They pounded down the ramp as the barbican and portcullis collapsed in a heap of rubble.
The floor of the valley was a charnel house, the ground soaked with blood and the moans of the dying filling the air. Savagely hacked S’tarra lay tangled with bleeding hillmen corpses in a hideous carpet, here and there dotted with the body of bandit. From the mountains around, despite the trembling of the earth, the sounds of battle floated, as those who fled the horror of the keep and the valley fought still.
Conan saw Hordo near the bandit campsite, sitting beside Karela’s crumpled red-striped pavilion as if nothing had happened. With Velita still dangling over his shoulder, the Cimmerian stopped before the one-eyed brigand. Haranides, having left his men a short distance back, stood to one side. Rock slides rumbled loudly as the early still shook. But at least, Conan thought, the death screams of the god-demon had faded from his mind.
“Did you find her, Hordo?” he asked as quietly as the noise would allow. They were in the safest spot there, so far as the earthquake was concerned, well away from the danger of the mountain coming done on them.
“She’s gone,” Hordo replied sadly. “Dead, I don’t know, gone.”
“Will you search for her?”
Hordo shook his head. “After this shaking I could search for years and not find her if she was right under my nose. No, I’m for Turan, and a caravan guard’s life, unless I can find an agreeable widow who owns a tavern. Come with me, Conan. I’ve about two coppers, but we can sell the girl and live off that for a while.”
“Not this girl,” Conan replied. “I promised to set her free, and I will.”