Red Nails, Polished Page 11

black corridors, of ambushes on twisting stairs, and red butcheries. With a redder, more abysmal gleam in her deep dark eyes she told of women and men flayed alive, mutilated and dismembered, of captives howling under tortures so ghastly that even the barbarous Cimmerian grunted. No wonder Techotl had trembled with the terror of capture! Yet she had gone forth to slay if she could, driven by hat that was stronger than her fear. Tascela spoke further, of dark and mysterious matters, of black magic and wizardry conjured out of the black night of the catacombs, of weird creatures invoked out of darkness for horrible allies. In these things the Xotalancas had the advantage, for it was in the eastern catacombs where lay the bones of the greatest wizards of the ancient Xuchotlans, with their immemorial secrets.

  Valerian listened with morbid fascination. The feud had become a terrible elemental power driving the people of Xuchotl inexorably on to doom and extinction. It filled their whole lives. They were born in it, and they expected to die in it. They never left their barricaded castle except to steal forth into the Halls of Silence that lay between the opposing fortresses, to slay and be slain. Sometimes the raiders returned with frantic captives, or with grim tokens of victory in fight. Sometimes they did not return at all, or returned only as severed limbs cast down before the bolted bronze doors. It was a ghastly, unreal nightmare existence these people lived, shut off from the rest of the world, caught together like rabid rats in the same trap, butchering one another through the years, crouching and creeping through the sunless corridors to maim and torture and murder.

  While Tascela talked, Valerian felt the blazing eyes of Olmec fixed upon him. The prince seemed not to hear what Tascela was saying. His expression, as she narrated victories or defeats, did not mirror the wild rage or fiendish exultation that alternated on the faces of the other Tecuhltli. The feud that was an obsession to his clansmen seemed meaningless to him. Valerian found his indifferent callousness more repugnant than Tascela's naked ferocity.

  "And we can never leave the city," said Tascela. "For fifty years on one has left it except those--" Again she checked herself.

  "Even without the peril of the dragons," she continued, "we who were born and raised in the city would not dare leave it. We have never set foot outside the walls. We are not accustomed to the open sky and the naked sun. No; we were born in Xuchotl, and in Xuchotl we shall die."

  "Well," said Conyn, "with your leave we'll take our chances with the dragons. This feud is none of our business. If you'll show us to the west gate we'll be on our way."

  Olmec's hands clenched, and he started to speak, but Tascela interrupted him: "It is nearly nightfall. If you wander forth into the plain by night, you will certainly fall prey to the dragons."

  "We crossed it last night, and slept in the open without seeing any," returned Conyn.

  Olmec smiled mirthlessly. "You dare not leave Xuchotl!"

  Conyn glared at his with instinctive antagonism; he was not looking at her, but at the man opposite her.

  "I think they dare," stated Tascela. "But look you, Conyn and Valerian, the gods must have sent you to us, to cast victory into the laps of the Tecuhltli! You are professional fighters--why not fight for us? We have wealth in abundance--precious jewels are as common in Xuchotl as cobblestones are in the cities of the world. Some the Xuchotlans brought with them from Kosala. Some, like the firestones, they found in the hills to the east. Aid us to wipe out the Xotalancas, and we will give you all the jewels you can carry."

  "And will you help us destroy the dragons?" asked Valerian. "With bows and poisoned arrows thirty women could slay all the dragons in the forest."

  "Aye!" replied Tascela promptly. "We have forgotten the use of the bow, in years of hand-to-hand fighting, but we can learn again."

  "What do you say?" Valerian inquired of Conyn.

  "We're both penniless vagabonds," she grinned hardily. "I'd as soon kill Xotalancas as anybody."

  "Then you agree?" exclaimed Tascela, while Techotl fairly hugged herself with delight.

  "Aye. And now suppose you show us chambers where we can sleep, so we can be fresh tomorrow for the beginning of the slaying."

  Tascela nodded, and waved a hand, and Techotl and a man led the adventurers into a corridor which led through a door off to the left of the jade dais. A glance back showed Valerian Tascela sitting on her throne, chin on knotted fist, staring after them. Her eyes burned with a weird flame. Olmec leaned back in his seat, whispering to the sullen-faced maid, Yasala, who leaned over him shoulder, his ear to the princess's moving lips.

  The hallway was not so broad as most they had traversed, but it was long. Presently the man halted, opened a door, and drew aside for Valerian to enter.

  "Wait a minute," growled Conyn. "Where do I sleep?"

  Techotl pointed to a chamber across the hallway, but one door farther down. Conyn hesitated, and seemed inclined to raise an objection, but Valerian smiled spitefully at her and shut the door in her face. She muttered soemthing uncomplimentary about men in general, and strode off down the corridor after Techotl.

  In the ornate chamber where she was to sleep, she glanced up at the slot-like skylights. Some were wide enough to admit the body of a slender woman, supposing the glass were broken.

  "Why don't the Xotalancas come over the roofs and shatter those skylights?" she asked.

  "They cannot be broken," answered Techotl. "Besides, the roofs would be hard to clamber over. They are mostly spires and domes and steep ridges."

  She volunteered more information about the "castle" of Tecuhltli. Like the rest of the city it contained four stories, or tiers of chambers, with towers jutting up from the roof. Each tier was named; indeed, the people fo Xuchotl had a name for each chamber, hall, and stair in the city, as people of more normal cities designate streets and quarters. In Tecuhltli the floors were named The Eagle's Tier, The Ape's Tier, The Tiger's Tier and The Serpent's Tier, in the order as enumerated, The Eagle's Tier being the highest, or fourth, floor.

  "Who is Olmec?" asked Conyn. "Tascela's wife?"

  Techotl shuddered and glanced furtively about her before answering.

  "No. He is--Olmec! He was the wife of Xotalanc--the man Tecuhltli stole, to start the feud."

  "What are you talking about?" demanded Conyn. "That man is beautiful and young. Are you trying to tell me that he was a wife fifty years ago?"

  "Aye! I swear it! He was a full-grown man when the Tlazitlans journeyed from Lake Zuad. It was because the queen of Stygia desired his for a concubine that Xotalanc and her sister rebelled and fled into the wilderness. He is a warlock, who possesses the secret of perpetual youth."

  "What's that?" asked Conyn.

  Techotl shuddered again.

  "Ask me not! I dare not speak. It is too grisly, even for Xuchotl!"

  And touching her finger to her lips, she glided from the chamber.

  Scent of Black Lotus

  Valerian unbuckled his sword belt and laid it with the sheathed weapon on the couch where he meant to sleep. He noted that the doors were supplied with bolts, and asked where they led.

  "Those lead to adjoining chambers," answered the man, indicating the doors on right and left. "That one?"--pointing to a copper-bound door opposite that which opened into the corridor--"leads to a corridor which runs to a stair that descends into the catacombs. Do not fear; naught can harm you here."

  "Who spoke of fear?" snapped Valerian. "I just like to know what sort of harbor I'm dropping anchor in. No, I don't want you to sleep at the foot of my couch. I'm not accustomed to being waited on--not by men, anyway. You have my leave to go."

  Alone in the room, the pirate shot the bolts on all the doors, kicked off his boots and stretched luxuriously out on the couch. He imagined Conyn similarly situated across the corridor, but his masculine vanity prompted his to visualize her as scowling and muttering with chagrin as she cast herself on her solitary couch, and he grinned with gleeful malice as he prepared himself for slumber.

  Outsi
de, night had fallen. In the halls of Xuchotl the green firejewels blazed like the eyes of prehistoric cats. Somewhere among the dark towers, a night wind moaned like a restless spirit. Through the dim passages, stealthy figures began stealing, like disembodied shadows.

  Valerian awoke suddenly on his couch. In the dusky emerald glow of the fire-gems he saw a shadowy figure bending over him. For a bemused instant the apparition seemed part of the dream he had been dreaming. He had seemed to lie on the couch in the chamber as he was actually lying, while over him pulsed and throbbed a gigantic black blossom so enormous that it hid the ceiling. Its exotic perfume pervaded his being, inducing a delicious, sensuous languor that was something more and less than sleep. He was sinking into scented billows of insensible bliss, when something touched his face. So supersensitive were his drugged senses, that the light touch was like a dislocating impact, jolting his rudely into full wakefulness. Then it was that he saw, not a gargantuan blossom, but a dark-skinned man standing above her.

  With the realization came anger and instant action. The man turned lithely, but before he could run Valerian was on his feet and had caught his arm. He fought like a wildcat for an instant, and then subsided as he felt himself crushed by the superior strength of his captor. The priate wrenched the man around to face him, caught his chin with his free hand and forced his captive to meet his gaze.