Part 3 (1/2)

He carried in one hand a staff taller than hiolden spiral, and in the other hand, a gourd A pungent odor rose froourd, sour, sweet, and sharp all at once

Without letting go of the staff, the God-Man knelt beside the hunter and motioned that he should sit up This the hunter did, and at once the gourd was thrust to his lips The taste of the breithin was so vile that he wanted to spit it out When he found hi; when the brew reached his stomach, he wanted to spew

Then it see vile and tainted, but beer of the rain and seeds It went straight to his head as such beer often did, and he no longer felt pain, not even in his foot and ankle

He was not wholly at ease over this; the ankle had groollen, the flesh turning pallid and noiso as if hot irons were at work upon it

Yet it did not, and soon he alking whole and hearty through the nightmarish halls of Xuchotl He was not afraid, for the God-Man ith hiainst any evil there, living or dead As he walked, he told the God-Man all he had seen or guessed, and it seemed that the God-Man heard every word and planted it in his arden patch In time, they came out of Xuchotl the sale The walls of the evil city faded into a green mist, and when the mist cleared, the hunter knew he still lay in the God House

But his ankle still did not hurt

It did not hurt even when the God-Man made a series of intricate motions over the hunter's body with the staff Was it only a fever-fancy, or did the golden spiral of the staff see eddy in a stream?

No matter When the God-Man was done, the hunter found that he could rise and walk He did so, and followed the God-Man where he was bidden, out of the cha rock The heads of the tote thick on the walls The hunter saw that where the rock showed, it was painted in colors for which he did not wish to find names, let alone utter them

Then they passed a wall of rocks that seeic than by mud Beyond lay a cha, and could not see the far wall at all

As for what lay below, after one look, he turned his head away It was not fear of the swirling sht conceal It was only that in his heart he kneas taboo for hiaze upon that smoke, and worse than that for him to see what the smoke hid

The God-Man pointed to a seat carved froe where the hunter stood The hunter sat down, dangling his legs over the abyss From above, he heard more voices, and then he was alone and the voice of the God-Man who had led hiue the hunter did not know and beat on a drum that sounded unlike any he had ever heard Or was it not a dru on the rock floor? If those staves were shod with iron, theyrock-

The smoke reared up in a wall before him, like a cobra ready to strike

Indeed, it spread out in such a likeness of a cobra's head that the hunter wanted to cry out

I am not of the Cobras I am of the Leopards Send a leopard for my spirit

He knew in the same moment that he would not speak, nor would it matter if he cried out to all the Gods of his people This was a place where mere mortals were impotent in the face of the older powers under the command of the God-Men

Even then, the hunter did not fear Nor did he fear when the shty wind tearing at the treetops caently as a babe in a sling on its mother's breast

Then the sht, swirling like the sht, and all of his other senses as well He never knew the moment when the life was sucked from his body and only an empty husk remained in the stone seat

”What was that?” Conan ht he had spoken only to himself, but Valeria was ,” she said She rolled over and tried for the tenth ti spicebush would not dig into her flesh

”Ugh,” she said ”The planks of a shi+p's bed are down cushi+ons cole”

Conan held up a hand for silence, and although Valeria looked sulky, she obeyed The Cimmerian waited until he was sure that whatever had reached hiain

”It ht I heard well, if a spell of evil ht have been like that”