Part 9 (1/2)
The yellow-haired atory can be worse than life itself? So we are all daether from birth
Besides, ould not sell his ence in his stare, Orastes,” said the largebeen dead,” answered Orastes ”He is as one neakened Hissleep nay, he was dead, not sleeping We brought his spirit back over the voids and gulfs of night and oblivion I will speak to him”
He bent over the foot of the sarcophagus, and fixing his gaze on the wide dark eyes of the man within, he said, slowly: ”Awake, Xaltotun!”
The lips of thewhisper
”You are Xaltotun!” exclaiestions ”You are Xaltotun of Python, in Acheron”
A dim flame flickered in the dark eyes
”I was Xaltotun,” he whispered ”I am dead”
”You are Xaltotun!” cried Orastes ”You are not dead! You live!”
”I am Xaltotun,” came the eery whisper ”But I aia, there I died”
”And the priests who poisoned you ans intact!” exclaiain! The Heart of Ahriman has restored your life, drawn your spirit back from space and eternity”
”The Heart of Ahrier ”The barbarians stole it from me!”
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”He remembers,” muttered Orastes ”Lift him from the case”
The others obeyed hesitantly, as if reluctant to touch the man they had recreated, and they seemed not easier in their minds when they felt firm muscular flesh, vibrant with blood and life, beneath their fingers But they lifted him upon the table, and Orastes clothed hiold stars and crescent old fillet about his te the black wavy locks that fell to his shoulders He let the, not even when they set hih ebony back and wide silver arolden claws He sat there rew in his dark eyes and -sunken witchlights floated slowly up through lance at his co in uest Their iron nerves had withstood an ordeal that ht have driven weaker s that he conspired, but e was as profound as their lawless ambitions and capacity for evil He turned his attention to the figure in the ebon-black chair And this one spoke at last
”I re Nemedian with a curious, archaic accent ”I ah priest of Set in Python, which was in Acheron The Heart of Ahriain where is it?”
Orastes placed it in his hand, and he drew breath deeply as he gazed into the depths of the terrible jewel burning in his grasp
”They stole it froht it is, strong to save or to dao While I held it, none could stand before me But it was stolen froia Much I reotten I have been in a far land, across ulfs and unlit oceans What is the year?”
Orastes answered hi of the Year of the Lion, three thousand years after the fall of Acheron”
”Three thousand years!” ? Who are you?”
”I am Orastes, once a priest of Mitra This man is Amalric, baron of Tor, in Ne of Nehtful heir of the throne of Aquilonia”
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”Why have you given me life?” demanded Xaltotun ”What do you require of me?”
Thethe working of an unclouded brain There was no hesitation or uncertainty in his manner He caives so Orastes met him with equal candor
”We have opened the doors of hell this night to free your soul and return it to your body because we need your aid We wish to place Tarascus on the throne of Nemedia, and to win for Valerius the crown of Aquilonia With your necromancy you can aid us”
Xaltotun's mind was devious and full of unexpected slants
”You must be deep in the arts yourself, Orastes, to have been able to restore my life How is it that a priest of Mitra knows of the Heart of Ahrier a priest of Mitra,” answered Orastes ”I was cast forth froic But for Aician
”But that left me free to pursue ia, and ales of Khitai I read the iron-bound books of Skelos, and talked with unseen creatures in deep wells, and faceless shapes in black reeking jungles I obtained a glius in the deiant-walled teia, and I learned of the arts that would bring back life to your shriveled corpse Fro manuscripts I learned of the Heart of Ahri-place, and at last I found it”
”Then why trouble to bring aze fixed on the priest ”Why did you not employ the Heart to further your oer?”
”Because no man today knows the secrets of the Heart,” answered Orastes ”Not even in legends live the arts by which to loose its full powers I knew it could restore life; of its deeper secrets I a you back to life It is the use of your knowledge we seek As for the Heart, you alone know its awful secrets”
Xaltotun shook his head, staring broodingly into the flareater than the sue of other men,” he said; ”yet I do not know the full power of the jewel I did not invoke it in the old days; I guarded it lest it be used against me At last it was stolen, and in the hands of a feathered shahty sorcery Then it vanished, and I was poisoned by the jealous priests of Stygia before I could learn where it was hidden”
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”It was hidden in a cavern below the temple of Mitra, in Tarantia,” said Orastes ”By devious ways I discovered this, after I had located your reia
”Zamorian thieves, partly protected by spells I learned from sources better left unmentioned, stole your uarded it in the dark, and by caon it came at last to this city
”Those same thieves or rather those of thehtful quest stole the Heart of Ahriman from its haunted cavern below the temple of Mitra, and all the skill of men and the spells of sorcerers nearly failed One ive the jewel intoof what he had seen in that accursed crypt The thieves of Zamora are the most faithful of men to their trust Even with my conjurements, none but them could have stolen the Heart frouarded darkness since the fall of Acheron, three thousand years ago”
Xaltotun lifted his lion-like head and stared far off into space, as if plu the lost centuries
”Three thousand years!” he muttered ”Set! Tell me what has chanced in the world”
”The barbarians who overthrew Acheron set up new kingdoms,” quoth Orastes ”Where the empire had stretched now rose realos, frodoms of Ophir, Corinthia and western Koth, which had been subject to the kings of Acheron, regained their independence with the fall of the empire”
”And what of the people of Acheron?” deia, Python was in ruins, and all the great, purple-towered cities of Acheron fouled with blood and trampled by the sandals of the barbarians”