Thoughts and words and movement died as one. All sound stopped as the great horned head turned toward her and three lidless eyes, black as death, regarded her like dark flames of unholy life.
Men in black chain-mail, their horned helmets making them seem more demons than men in the dim light of fires burned low in iron cressets, appeared as if from the walls to defend the roughcut stone passage. Demons they might appear, yet they died like men. Into the midst of them Conan waded, his ancient broadsword tirelessly rising and falling in furious butchery, till its length was stained crimson and blood fell from it as if the steel itself had wounds. A charnel house he made, and those who dared confront him died. Many could not face that gory blade nor the deathly cold eyes of he who wielded it, and darted past the one man to face instead the nine behind.
The Cimmerian spared no thought for those who refused him combat. What they guarded and what he sought lay ahead, and he did not cease his slaying until he had hacked his way into a huge cavern. The blood chilled in his veins at what he saw.
Twenty more of the black-armored men stood there, but they were as frozen as he, and seemed as insignificant as ants beside what else the chamber contained. Karela, her lush nakedness welted, hanging by her wrists from two wooden pillars. Synelle, oddly garbed in black silk that clung damply to her, a horned chaplet on her brow. And beyond her a shape out of madmen’s nightmares, its skin the color of dead men’s blood. Al’Kiir awakened threw back his head, and from a broad fanged gash of a mouth came laughter to curdle the heart of heroes.
Even as the evil god’s laughter stunned Conan’s mind, Synelle’s presence filled it. The staff fell from his fingers, and he took a step toward her.
The dark-eyed noblewoman pointed a slender finger at the young giant. As if commanding more wine she said, “Kill him.”
The strange lethargy that had affected him of late when he was about her slowed Conan’s hand, but his sword took the head of the first man to turn toward him before that man had his blade half-drawn. Nobles could prate while they lounged at their ease of chivalry in battle, though they rarely practiced it; a son of the bleak northland knew only how to fight to win.
The others came at him then, but he retreated to the entrance, wide enough for only three at a time to get near. With a frenzy approaching madness he fought, and his steel did murderous work among them. Synelle filled his brain. He would get to Synelle if he must wade to his waist in blood.
A scream drew his eye beyond the men struggling to slay him. Al’Kiir had seized Synelle in a clawed hand that almost encircled her narrow waist, lifting her before that triad of ebon eyes for inspection.
Conan redoubled his efforts, and the fury of his attack, seeming reckless of death, forced the mail-clad men to fall back before him.
“Not me!” Synelle screamed, her face contorted in terror. “I am thy faithful slave, o mighty Al’Kiir! Thy priestess! She is the one brought for thy delight!”
Al’Kiir turned his horned head to Karela, and his lipless mouth curled in a fanged smile. He took a step toward her, reaching out.
“No!” Conan roared, desperation clawing at him. “Not Karela!” His foot struck something that rolled with the sound of wood on stone. The Staff of Avanrakash.
Ignoring the men who still faced him, Conan seized the staff from the floor and hurled it like a javelin. Straight to the chest of the monstrous figure the plain wooden staff flew, struck, and pierced. Al’Kiir’s free hand tugged at the length of wood, but it could as well have been anchored with barbs. Black ichor poured out around it, and the horned god shrieked, a piercing cry that went on without end, shattering thought and turning muscles to water.
Steel clattered to the stone floor as black-mailed men dropped their swords and fled, pushing past Conan as if he held no weapon at all. And he, in turn, paid them no heed, for the scream that would not stop allowed room for awareness of nothing else.
Around the staff drops of ichor hardened like beads of obsidian, and the hardening widened, spreading steadily through the malevolent shape.
Synelle plucked frantically at the claw-tipped fingers that held her; her long legs kicked wildly. “Release me,” she pleaded. “Release thy faithful priestess, o mighty Al’Kiir.” Now she struggled with fingers of stone. Slowly, as if it moved with difficulty, the horned head turned to look at her. “Release me!” she screamed. “Release me! No! Mitra, save me!” Her kicking slowed, then her legs were frozen, her cries stilled. Her pale skin gleamed like polished marble in the light from the torches. There was silence.
Flight. Flight from pain great enough to slay a thousand worlds. Flight back to the hated prison of nothingness. Yet something had been brought along. It was clothed in the flesh it had once worn, and a beautiful, naked woman, dark of eye and silvery of hair, floated in the void, mouth working with screams that were not worth hearing. Evil joy, black as the depths of the pit. Long centuries of delight would come from this one before the pitiful spark that was human essence faded and was gone. But the pain did not end. It grew instead. The crystalline thread that linked this place of nonexistence with that other world was still intact, unseverable. Yet it must be ended, least endless eons of agony follow. It must be ended.
Conan shook his head as if waking from a fever dream, and ran to Karela. Quickly he severed her bonds, caught her as she would have fallen.
The beautiful red-haired bandit turned her sweat-streaked face up to him. “I knew you would come,” she whispered hoarsely. “I prayed for you to rescue me, and I hate you for it.”
The Cimmerian could not help smiling. Whatever had happened to her, Karela was unchanged. Sheathing his sword, he picked her up in his arms. Sighing weakly, she put her arms around his neck and pressed her face to his chest. He thought he felt the wetness of tears.
His gaze went to the stone shape pierced by the wooden staff, the sanguinary horned monstrosity clutching the alabaster figure of a struggling woman, her face frozen in horror for eternity. All the raging feelings and confusions that had filled him were gone as if they had never been. Bewitched, he thought angrily. Synelle had ensorceled him. He hoped that wherever she was she had time for regret.
Machaon and Narus ran into the chamber, bloody swords in hand, and skidded to a halt, staring in awe. “I’ll not ask what happened here,” the gaunt-faced man said, “for I misdoubt I’d believe it.”
“They flee from us, Cimmerian,” Machaon said. “Ten of them together, and they ran down a side passage at the sight of us. Whatever you did took all the heart right out of them.”
“The others?” Conan asked, and the tattooed mercenary shook his head grimly.
“Dead. But they collected their ferryman’s fees and more.”
Suddenly Narus pointed at the huge stone figure. “It‘s—it’s—” He stammered, unable to get any more words out.
Conan spun. The petrified body of the god was quivering. A hum came from it, a hum that quickly rose in pitch until it pierced the ears like driven nails.
“Run!” the Cimmerian shouted, but could not hear his own words through the burning pain that clawed at his skull.
The other two men needed no urging, though. The three of them sped through the rough-hewn stone passages, Conan keeping up easily despite carrying Karela. In their headlong flight they leaped over the bodies of the dead, but saw no one living. And the mind-killing vibration followed them up sloping tunnels, level after level, up the stone steps to the ruins.