“With the rats!” The small man’s voice was a squeak, and Zula chuckled, though not strongly.
A final turn and the stairs led into a long chamber with a high vaulted ceiling supported by what seemed at first glance to be golden columns, a row of them along each wall. Nearly half the columns were toppled, though, their b
roken pieces littering the dusty, mosaicked floor, and the pieces showed thin hammered gold-leaf atop ordinary gray stone. The ceiling was worked in a profusion of strange symbols, only one of which Conan could even recognize. An open eye, as on the bronze doors, repeated over and over among the other designs. What it meant he could not begin to guess.
“Conan,” Akiro called, “this seems the only way out other than the stairs.”
The wizard stood at the far end of the chamber by a broad door that seemed of iron, yet had no spot of rust on it. It had no hinges either, Conan saw, as if it were merely a huge metal plate set in the stone.
“This is the way,” Jehnna whispered eagerly. She stared intently at the door, or at something beyond. “We must go on.”
The door’s dark gray surface was smooth except for the inevitable open eye in its center and two snarling demons’ heads near the bottom. Tusks, like those of a wild boar, curved out from the open mouths of those grotesque heads. If the door could not be pushed open, Conan thought, then possibly … He rapped his sword sharply against each of the grimacing demon heads. From one gaping mouth wriggled a scarlet centipede; its bite was sure, slow and agonized death. Malak leaped from its way as it scurried for a hiding place among the fallen columns.
Sheathing his sword, Conan handed his torch to Zula and squatted before the door. One hand he placed in each demon mouth. As he had thought, his hands fit easily. He heaved upward.
“Handles,” Malak exclaimed.
With every muscle straining, Conan began to wonder if he had been right in reaching the same conclusion as the smaller man. The metal slab moved no more than if it were a part of the mountain. Suddenly Bombatta was there beside him, grasping one of the demon heads. Conan shifted both hands to the other, and redoubled his effort. Tendons stood out along his neck and thighs, and every sinew of him cried out. Silver flecks danced before his eyes. And the iron slab lurched up a handsbreadth. Slowly then, with a metallic racheting noise, the door rose, until Conan and Bombatta between them held it above their heads.
“In,” Conan rasped. “Quickly.”
The others of the party squeezed hurriedly by the two big men, then Bombatta released his hold and followed. Conan’s thews quivered with the strain of holding the weighty door alone, yet he hesitated. When he released it, it would come down, and look as he might, he could see no demons’ open mouths nor other means of lifting it from the other side. They would be trapped. But if he could not find a way to prop it open, he would have to let it fall.
Murmuring to himself thoughtfully, Akiro stepped to the wall beside the door, where a bronze rod ending in a large knob, embossed with the everpresent open eye, projected from the stone. The mage put a hand on the knob, pushed, and the rod sank into the wall.
Conan blinked. There seemed to be a lessening of the weight on him. He eased his upward pressure slightly. The door did not move. With a sour grunt he stepped from under it.
“I thank you,” he told Akiro, “but now that I think of it, could you not have opened this yourself?”
“I could have,” Akiro replied mildly, “but you said I should wait to be asked. As I was not—”
“Where are the others?” Conan cut him off.
The light of Akiro’s torch lit one end of a narrow corridor, and there was no sign of anyone other than the two of them, nor any light from the other torches. Cursing, the Cimmerian set out down that hall at a run, with Akiro panting in his footsteps. The corridor opened into a large, circular chamber, and both men skidded to a halt in amazement. The others were already there, holding their torches high while they stared about them.
Directly opposite the door through which they entered a monstrous head of carved black stone, fanged and glaring, as tall as a big man, projected from the wall. Two other doorways, set equidistant around the circle from the first, led from the chamber. Or rather, one did, for the other was broken and choked with rubble that spilled in a fan into the room. The rest of the walls were carved in bas-relief, images of fabled beasts, gilded, with gems set for their eyes while others formed hooves and claws and horns. At intervals around the walls great plaques of gold were set, covered with strange script. The low domed ceiling was tied with onyx and set with diamonds and sapphires, twinkling in the light of the torches, as if to represent a night sky.
Akiro rushed to one of the golden plaques and ran his fingers over the deep-carved script as if he did not believe his eyes. “This is the same language as outside, and more of it than exists in one place anywhere else in the world. I can … yes, I can make it out. Listen.” He spoke on slowly, pausing to trace letters. “And on the thirteenth day of the Last Battle, the gods did come to war, and the mountains did tremble at their footsteps.”
The rotund wizard went on, but Conan was more interested in what Jehnna was doing under Bombatta’s watchful eye. She alone had not goggled at the riches of the chamber. Her eyes were only for the massive, terrible head of black stone. Now she stood before it, looking nowhere else. Beneath her feet was a circle of runes carved in the marble of the floor, and woven among them was a five-pointed star with straight lines joining its points.
Conan’s breath caught in his throat. He knew the symbol of the star of old, knew it to his regret. A pentagram, a focus of sorcerous powers. He half-raised a hand to stop her. But there was Valeria. And Jehnna said this was her destiny, that she had been born to do this thing. The hand he had raised clenched into a fist until his knuckles cracked. He could do nothing else but see it through to the end.
From beneath her robes Jehnna produced the black velvet bag in which she carried the Heart of Ahriman. As the blood-red gem slipped into her palm its sanguine glow filled the chamber, and the jewels set in the ceiling seemed to glitter more fiercely. Carefully she set the Heart down before her in the pentagram; there was a small niche carved into which it fit exactly. As she straightened awareness faded from her eyes. In a trance, she chanted, and her words rang round the walls.
As she intoned the words, the radiance of the Heart increased, yet now it was focused, shining only on the great stone head, bathing it in crimson light. The black stone eyes especially seemed to reflect its glow, and crimson shadows danced in their depths, depths that had not been there moments before.
“It lives,” Zula hissed, and Malak began muttering prayers.
“You must stop her,” Akiro said suddenly, urgency riddling his voice. “Quickly, Conan, you must—” He broke off with a moan of denial that seemed wrung from his bones.
Soundlessly the stone jaws of the monstrous head opened, spreading wide enough to swallow three men whole, and in that mouth burned fire such as no eye there had ever before seen. Blood turned to flame, it was, and Conan found himself stepping back, a hand before to his face to shield him from heat that seemed to sear the very air. Though it pained his eyes to look, the Cimmerian saw a crystal spire in the midst of those flames. It was a pellucid column such as the one on which the Heart of Ahriman had rested in Amon-Rama’s place, but atop this one was a horn of gold, like the horn of a bull. Neither spire nor horn seemed touched by the fiery tempest that roared about them.
Jehnna still stared as if not at this world, but worlds beyond. Her large eyes were blank, and her face lacked all expression. Slowly her hands rose to her shoulders, and her robes fell to her feet. Naked, she stood, slender curves bathed with the light of the flames before her, the birthmark between her small breasts glowing like those fires. With quick, unhesitating steps, she moved forward. Not a muscle moving, Bombatta watched her, and the light in his dark eyes could have been a reflection of the fiery furnace.
“No!” Conan shouted, yet even as he did it was too late.
Into the roaring flames Jehnna stepped. About her the fire flared as if in fury at her invasion, licking at her slim nudity, yet she moved deeper, unaware and unharmed. In both hands she lifted the golden horn, and with it walked from the blazing furnace, back to the pentagram.