Red Nails, Polished Page 8

tilted sidewise, dog-like, triumph struggling with fear in her repellent countenance.

  "Come away, now!" she whispered. "We have done enough! Five dead dogs! My people will welcome you! They will honor you! But come! It is far to Tecuhltli. At any moment the Xotalancs may come on us in numbers too great even for your swords."

  "Lead the way," grunted Conyn.

  Techotl instantly mounted a stair leading up to the gallery, beckoning them to follow her, which they did, moving rapidly to keep on her heels. Having reached the gallery, she plunged into a door that opened toward the west, and hurried through chamber after chamber, each lighted by skylights or green fire-jewels.

  "What sort of place can this be?" muttered Valerian under his breath.

  "Crom knows!" answered Conyn. "I've seen her kind before, though. They live on the shores of Lake Zuad, near the border of Kush. They're a sort of mongrel Stygians, mixed with another race that wandered into Stygia from the east some centuries ago and were absorbed by them. They're called Tlazitlans. I'm willing to bet it wasn't they who built this city, though."

  Techotl's fear did not sem to diminish as they drew away from the chamber where the dead women lay. She kept twisting her head on her shoulder to listen for sounds of pursuit, and stared with burning intensity into every doorway they passed.

  Valerian shivered in spite of himself. He feared no woman. But the weird floor beneath his feet, the uncanny jewels over him head, dividing the lurking shadows among them, the stealth and terror of their guide, impressed his with a nameless apprehension, a sensation of lurking, inhuman peril.

  "They may be between us and Tecuhltli!" she whispered once. "We must beware lest they be lying in wait!"

  "Why don't we get out of this infernal palace, and take to the streets?" demanded Valerian.

  "There are no streets in Xuchotl," she answered. "No squares nor open courts. The whole city is built like one giant palace under one great roof. The nearest approach to a street is the Great Hall which traverses the city from the north gate to the south gate. The only doors opening into the outer world are the city gates, through which no living woman has passed for fifty years."

  "How long have you dwelt here?" asked Conyn.

  "I was born in the castle of Tecuhltli thirty-five years ago. I have never set foot outside the city. For the love of the gods, let us go silently! These halls may be full of lurking devils. Tascela shall tell you all when we reach Tecuhltli."

  So in silence they glided on with the green fire-stones blinking overhead and the flaming floors smoldering under their feet, and it seemed to Valerian as if they fled through Hell, guided by a dark-faced lank-haired goblin.

  Yet it was Conyn who halted them as they were crossing an unusually wide chamber. Her wilderness-bred ears were keener even than the ears of Techotl, whetted though these were by a lifetime of warfare in this silent corridors.

  "You think some of your enemies may be ahead of us, lying in ambush?"

  "They prowl through these rooms at all hours," answered Techotl, "as do we. The halls and chambers between Tecuhltli and Xotalanc are a disputed region, owned by no woman. We call it the Halls of Silence. Why do you ask?"

  "Because women are in the chambers ahead of us," answered Conyn. "I heard steel clink against stone."

  Again a shaking seized Techotl, and she clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering.

  "Perhaps they are your friends," suggested Valerian.

  "We dare not chance it," she panted, and moved with frenzied activity. She turned aside and glided through a doorway on the left which led into a chamber from which an ivory staircase wound down into darkness.

  "This leads to an unlighted corridor below us!" she hissed, great beads of perspiration standing out on her brow. "They may be lurking there, too. It may all be a trick to draw us into it. But we must take the chance that they have laid their ambush in the rooms above. Come swiftly now!"

  Softly as phantoms they descended the stair and came to the mouth of a corridor black as night. They crouched there for a moment, listening, and then melted into it. As they moved along, Valerian's flesh crawled between his shoulders in momentary expectation of a sword-thrust in the dark. But for Conyn's iron fingers gripping his arm he had no physical cognizance of his companions. Neither made as much noise as a cat would have made. The darkness was absolute. One hand, outstretched, touched a wall, and occasionally he felt a door under his fingers. The hallway seemed interminable.

  Suddenly they were galvanized by a sound behind them. Valerian's flesh crawled anew, for he recognized it as the soft opening of a door. Women had come into the corridor behind them. Even with the thought he stumbled over something that felt like a human skull. It rolled across the floor with an appalling clatter.

  "Run!" yelped Techotl, a note of hysteria in her voice, and was away down the corridor like a flying ghost.

  Again Valerian felt Conyn's hand bearing his up and sweeping his along as they raced after their guide. Conyn could see in the dark no better than he, but she possessed a sort of instinct that made her course unerring. Without her support and guidance he would have fallen or stumbled against the wall. Down the corridor they sped, while the swift patter of flying feet drew closer and closer, and then suddenly Techotl panted: "Here is the stair! After me, quick! Oh, quick!"

  Her hand came out of the dark and caught Valerian's wrist as he stumbled blindly on the steps. He felt himself half dragged, half lifted up the winding stair, while Conyn released his and turned on the steps, her ears and instincts telling her their foes were hard at their backs. And the sounds were not all those of human feet.

  Something came writhing up the steps, something that slithered and rustled and brought a chill in the air with it. Conyn lashed down with her great sword and felt the blade shear through something that might have been flesh and bone, and cut deep into the stair beneath. Something touched her foot that chilled like the touch of frost, and then the darkness beneath her was disturbed by a frightful thrashing and lashing, and a woman cried out in agony.

  The next moment Conyn was racing up the winding staircase, and through a door that stood open at the head.

  Valerian and Techotl were already through, and Techotl slammed the door and shot a bolt across it--the first Conyn had seen since they had left the outer gate.

  Then she turned and ran across the well-lighted chamber into which they had come, and as they passed through the farther door, Conyn glanced back and saw the door groaning and straining under heavy pressure violently applied from the other side.

  Though Techotl did not abate either her speed or her caution, she seemed more confident now. She had the air of a woman who had come into familiar territory, within call of friends.

  But Conyn renewed her terror by asking: "What was that thing I fought on the stairs?"

  "The women of Xotalanc," answered Techotl, without looking back. "I told you the halls were full of them."

  "This wasn't a woman," grunted Conyn. "It was something that crawled, and it was as cold as ice to the touch. I think I cut it asunder. It fell back on the women who were following us, and must have killed one of them in its death throes."

  Techotl's head jerked back, her face ashy again. Convulsively she quickened her pace.

  "It was the Crawler! A monster they have brought out of the catacombs to aid them! What it is, we do not know, but we have found our people hideously slain by it. In Set's name, hasten! If they put it on our trail, it will follow us to the very doors of Tecuhltli!"

  "I doubt it," grunted Conyn. "That was a shrewd cut I dealt it on the stair."

  "Hasten! Hasten!" groaned Techotl.

  They ran through a series of green-lit chambers, traversed a broad hall, and halted before a giant bronze door.

  Techotl said: "This is Tecuhltli!"

  The People of the Feud

  Techotl smote on the bronze door with her clenched hand, and then turned sidewise, so that she could watch back along th
e hall.

  "Women have been smitten down before this door, when they thought they were safe," she said.

  "Why don't they open the door?" asked Conyn.

  "They are looking at us through the Eye," answered Techotl. "They are puzzled at the sight of you." She lifted her voice and called: "Open the door, Excelan! It is I, Techotl, with friends from the great world beyond the forest!--They will open," she assured her allies.

  "They'd better do it in a hurry, then," said Conyn grimly. "I hear something crawling along the floor beyond the hall."

  Techotl went ashy again and attacked the door with her fists, screaming: "Open, you fools, open! The Crawler is at our heels!"

  Even as she beat and shouted, the great bronze door swung noiselessly back, revealing a heavy chain across the entrance, over which spearheads bristled and fierce countenances regarded them intently for an instant. Then the chain was dropped and Techotl grasped the arms of her friends in a nervous frenzy and fairly dragged them over the threshold. A glance over her shoulder just as the door was closing showed Conyn the long dim vista of the hall, and dimly framed at the other end an ophidian shape that writhed slowly and painfully into view, flowing in a dull-hued length from a chamber door, its hideous bloodstained head wagging drunkenly. Then the closing door shut off the view.

  Inside the square chamber into which they had come heavy bolts were drawn across the foor, and the chain locked into place. The door was made to