`He is opening the farther door,’ said Nabonidus. `By Mitra, he is more human than even I had guessed! See, the mist swirls out of the chamber, and is dissipated. He waits, to be safe. Now he raises the other panel. He is cautious – he knows the doom of the gray lotus, which brings madness and death. By Mitra!’
Murilo jerked about at the electric quality of the exclamation.
`Our one chance!’ exclaimed Nabonidus. `If he leaves the chamber above for a few minutes, we will risk a dash up those stairs.’
Suddenly tense, they watched the monster waddle through the doorway and vanish. With the lifting of the glass panel, the curtains had fallen again, hiding the chamber of death.
`We must chance it!’ gasped Nabonidus, and Murilo saw perspiration break out on his face. `Perhaps he will be disposing of the bodies as he has seen me do. Quick! Follow me up those stairs!’
He ran toward the steps and up them with an agility that amazed Murilo. The young nobleman and the barbarian were close at his heels, and they heard his gusty sigh of relief as he threw open the door at the top of the stairs. They burst into the broad chamber they had seen mirrored below. Thak was nowhere to be seen.
`He’s in that chamber with the corpses!’ exclaimed Murilo. `Why not trap him there as he trapped them?’
`No, no!’ gasped Nabonidus, an unaccustomed pallor tingeing his features. `We do not know that he is in there. He might emerge before we could reach the trap-rope, anyway! Follow me into the corridor; I must reach my chamber and obtain weapons which will destroy him. This corridor is the only one opening from this chamber which is not set with a trap of some kind.’
They followed him swiftly through a curtained doorway opposite the door of the death-chamber, and came into a corridor, into which various chambers opened. With fumbling haste Nabonidus began to try the doors on each side. They were locked, as was the door at the other end of the corridor.
`My God!’ The Red Priest leaned against the wall, his skin ashen. `The doors are locked, and Thak took my keys from me. We are trapped, after all.’
Murilo stared appalled to see the man in such a state of nerves, and Nabonidus pulled himself together with an effort.
`That beast has me in a panic,’ he said. `If you had seen him tear men as I have seen – well, Mitra aid us, but we must fight him now with what the gods have given us. Come!’
He led them back to the curtained doorway, and peered into the great chamber in time to see Thak emerge from the opposite doorway. It was apparent that the beastman had suspected something. His small, close-set ears twitched; he glared angrily about him, and approaching the nearest doorway, tore aside the curtains to look behind them.
Nabonidus drew back, shaking like a leaf. He gripped Conan’s shoulder. `Man, do you dare pit your knife against his fangs?’
The Cimmerian’s eyes blazed in answer.
`Quick!’ the Red Priest whispered, thrusting him behind the curtains, close against the wall. `As he will find us soon enough, we will draw him to us. As he rushes past you, sink your blade in his back if you can. You Murilo, show yourself to him, and then flee up the corridor. Mitra knows, we have no chance with him in hand-to-hand combat, but we are doomed anyway when he finds us.’
Murilo felt his blood congeal in his veins, but he steeled himself, and stepped outside the doorway. Instantly Thak, on the other side of the chamber, wheeled, glared, and charged with a thunderous roar. His scarlet hood had fallen back, revealing his black misshapen head; his black hands and red robe were splashed with a brighter red. He was like a crimson and black nightmare as he rushed across the chamber, fangs bared, his bowed legs hurtling his enormous body along at a terrifying gait.
Murilo turned and ran back into the corridor, and quick as he was, the shaggy horror was almost at his heels. Then as the monster rushed past the curtains, from among them catapulted a great form that struck full on the apeman’s shoulders, at the same instant driving the poniard into the brutish back. Thak screamed horribly as the impact knocked him off his feet, and the combatants hit the floor together. Instantly there began a whirl and thrash of limbs, the tearing and rending of a fiendish battle.
Murilo saw that the barbarian had locked his legs about the apeman’s torso, and was striving to maintain his position on the monster’s back, while he butchered it with his poniard. Thak, on the other hand, was striving to dislodge his clinging foe, to drag him around within reach of the giant fangs that gaped for his flesh. In a whirlwind of blows and scarlet tatters they rolled along the corridor, revolving so swiftly that Murilo dared not use the chair he had caught up, lest he strike the Cimmerian. And he saw that in spite of the handicap of Conan’s first hold, and the voluminous robe that lashed and wrapped about the apeman’s limbs and body, Thak’s giant strength was swiftly prevailing. Inexorably he was dragging the Cimmerian around in front of him. The apeman had taken punishment enough to have killed a dozen men. Conan’s poniard had sunk again and again into his torso, shoulders and bull-like neck; he was streaming blood from a score of wounds, but unless the blade quickly reached some absolutely vital spot, Thak’s inhuman vitality would survive to finish the Cimmerian, and after him, Conan’s companions.
Conan was fighting like a wild beast himself, in silence except for his gasps of effort. The black talons of the monster and the awful grasp of those misshapen hands ripped and tore at him, the grinning jaws gaped for his throat. Then Murilo, seeing an opening, sprang and swung the chair with all his power, and with force enough to have brained a human being. The chair glanced from Thak’s slanted black skull; but the stunned monster momentarily relaxed his rending grasp, and in that instant Conan, gasping and streaming blood, plunged forward and sank his poniard to the hilt in the apeman’s heart.
With a convulsive shudder the beastman started from the floor, then sank limply back. His fierce eyes set and glazed, his thick limbs quivered and became rigid.
Conan staggered dizzily up, shaking the sweat and blood out of his eyes. Blood dripped from his poniard and fingers, and trickled in rivulets down his thighs, arms and breast. Murilo caught at him to support him, but the barbarian shook him off impatiently.
`When I cannot stand alone, it will be time to die; he mumbled, through mashed lips. `But I’d like a flagon of wine.’
Nabonidus was staring down at the still figure as if he could not believe his own eyes. Black, hairy, abhorrent, the monster lay, grotesque in the tatters of the scarlet robe; yet more human than bestial, even so, and possessed somehow of a vague and terrible pathos.
Even the Cimmerian sensed this, for he panted: `I have slain a man tonight, not a beast. I will count him among the chiefs whose souls I’ve sent into the dark, and my women will sing of him.’
Nabonidus stooped and picked up a bunch of keys on a golden chain. They had fallen from the apeman’s girdle during the battle. Motioning his companions to follow him, he led them to a chamber, unlocked the door, and led the way inside. It was illumined like the others. The Red Priest took a vessel of wine from a table and filled crystal beakers. As his companions drank thirstily, he murmured: `What a night! It is nearly dawn, now. What of you, my friends?’
`I’ll dress Conan’s hurts, if you will fetch me bandages and the like,’ said Murilo, and Nabonidus nodded, and moved toward the door that led into the corridor. Something about his bowed head caused Murilo to watch him sharply. At the door the Red Priest wheeled suddenly. His face had undergone a transformation. His eyes gleamed with his old fire, his lips laughed soundlessly.
`Rogues together!’ his voice rang with its accustomed mockery. `But not fools together. You are the fool, Murilo!’
`What do you mean?’ the young nobleman started forward.
`Back!’ Nabonidus’s voice cracked like a whip. `Another step and I will blast you!’
Murilo’s blood turned cold as he saw that the Red Priest’s hand grasped a thick velvet rope which hung among the curtains just outside the door.
`What treachery is this?’ cried Murilo. `You swore-‘
`I swore I would not tell the king a jest concerning you! I did not swear not to take matters into my own hands if I could. Do you think I would pass up such an opportunity? Under ordinary circumstances I would not dare kill you myself, without sanction of the king, but now none will ever know. You will go into the acid-vats along with Thak and the nationalist fools, and none will be the wiser. What a night this has been for me! If I have lost some valuable servants, I have nevertheless rid myself of various dangerous enemies. Stand back! I am over the threshold, and you cannot possibly reach me before I tug this cord and send you to hell. Not the gray lotus, this time, but something just as effective. Nearly every chamber in my house is a trap. And so, Murilo, fool that you are-‘