Part 6 (1/2)
He staggered up, yaht had almost unseated his reason She was a in the Stygian tongue, though in a dialect unfamiliar to her
”Who are you? Whence co on, without waiting for her to reply: ”But you are a friend--Goddess or devil, itSkull! It was but a man beneath it, after all! We deemed it a demon _they_ conjured up out of the catacos and stiffened, straining his ears with painful intensity The girl heard nothing
”We must hasten!” he whispered ”_They_ are west of the Great Hall! Theyupon us even now!”
He seized her wrist in a convulsive grasp she found hard to break
”Whom do you mean by 'they'?” she dely for an instant, as if he found her ignorance hard to understand
”They?” he stauely ”Why--why, the people of Xotalanc! The clan of the ate”
”You mean to say this city is inhabited?” she exclai in the impatience of apprehension ”Come away! Come quick! We must return to Tecuhltli!”
”Where is that?” she deate!” He had her wrist again and was pulling her toward the door through which he had first come Great beads of perspiration dripped from his dark forehead, and his eyes blazed with terror
”Wait aoff his hand ”Keep your hands off me, or I'll split your skull What's all this about? Who are you?
Where would you take lances to all sides, and began speaking so fast his words tripped over each other
”My name is Techotl I am of Tecuhltli I and this man who lies with his throat cut came into the Halls of Science to try and ambush some of the Xotalancas But we becaullet slit The Burning Skull did it, I know, just as he would have slain me had you not killed hi from Xotalanc! The Gods themselves blench at the fate of those they take alive!”
At the thought he shook as with an ague and his dark skin grew ashy
Valeria frowned puzzledly at hiless to her
She turned toward the skull, which still glowed and pulsed on the floor, and was reaching a booted toe tentatively toward it, when theforith a cry
”Do not touch it! Do not even look at it! Madness and death lurk in it
The wizards of Xotalanc understand its secret--they found it in the catacos who ruled in Xuchotl in the black centuries of the past To gaze upon it freezes the blood and withers the brain of a man who understands not its mystery To touch it causes madness and destruction”
She scowled at hiure, with his lean, muscle-knotted fralow of terror, lurked a weird light she had never seen in the eyes of a man wholly sane Yet he seeed, reaching for her hand, and then recoiling as he reer How you came here I do not know, but if you were a Goddess or a des you have asked reat forest, whence our ancestors came But you are our friend, or you would not have slain my enemy Come quickly, before the Xotalancas find us and slay us!”
Frolanced to the sinister skull, s on the floor near the dead man It was like a skull seen in a drea distortions and malformations of contour and outline In life the wearer of that skull must have presented an alien and monstrous aspect Life? It seemed to possess some sort of life of its own Its janed at her and snapped together Its radiance grew brighter, rew too; it was a dreaent voice which snapped Valeria back fro