Olmec stiffened; fear grew in his flaming eyes. Slowly he swung his great head about and stared at Tascela who posed negligently in the curtained doorway, one hand on her smooth hip. Valeria twisted herself about in his iron grip, and when she met the burning eyes of Tascela, a chill tingled along her supple spine. New experiences were flooding Valeria"s proud soul that night. Recently she had learned to fear a man; now she knew what it was to fear a woman.
Olmec sat motionless, a gray pallor growing under his swarthy skin.
Tascela brought her other hand from behind her and displayed a small gold vessel.
"I feared she would not like your wine, Olmec," purred the princess, "so I brought some of mine, some I brought with me long ago from the sh.o.r.es of Lake Zuad--do you understand, Olmec?"
Beads of sweat stood out suddenly on Olmec"s brow. His muscles relaxed, and Valeria broke away and put the table between them. But though reason told her to dart from the room, some fascination she could not understand held her rigid, watching the scene.
Tascela came toward the seated prince with a swaying, undulating walk that was mockery in itself. Her voice was soft, slurringly caressing, but her eyes gleamed. Her slim fingers stroked his beard lightly.
"You are selfish, Olmec," she crooned, smiling. "You would keep our handsome guest to yourself, though you knew I wished to entertain her.
You are much at fault, Olmec!"
The mask dropped for an instant; her eyes flashed, her face was contorted and with an appalling show of strength her hand locked convulsively in his beard and tore out a great handful. This evidence of unnatural strength was no more terrifying than the momentary baring of the h.e.l.lish fury that raged under her bland exterior.
Olmec lurched up with a roar, and stood swaying like a bear, his mighty hands clenching and unclenching.
"s.l.u.t!" His booming voice filled the room. "Witch! She-devil! Tecuhltli should have slain you fifty years ago! Begone! I have endured too much from you! This white-skinned wench is mine! Get hence before I slay you!"
The princess laughed and dashed the blood-stained strands into his face.
Her laughter was less merciful than the ring of flint on steel.
"Once you spoke otherwise, Olmec," she taunted. "Once, in your youth, you spoke words of love. Aye, you were my lover once, years ago, and because you loved me, you slept in my arms beneath the enchanted lotus--and thereby put into my hands the chains that enslaved you. You know you cannot withstand me. You know I have but to gaze into your eyes, with the mystic power a priest of Stygia taught me, long ago, and you are powerless. You remember the night beneath the black lotus that waved above us, stirred by no worldly breeze; you scent again the unearthly perfumes that stole and rose like a cloud about you to enslave you. You cannot fight against me. You are my slave as you were that night--as you shall be so long as you shall live, Olmec of Xuchotl!"
Her voice had sunk to a murmur like the rippling of a stream running through starlit darkness. She leaned close to the prince and spread her long tapering fingers upon his giant breast. His eyes glazed, his great hands fell limply to his sides.
With a smile of cruel malice, Tascela lifted the vessel and placed it to his lips.
"Drink!"
Mechanically the prince obeyed. And instantly the glaze pa.s.sed from his eyes and they were flooded with fury, comprehension and an awful fear.
His mouth gaped, but no sound issued. For an instant he reeled on buckling knees, and then fell in a sodden heap on the floor.
His fall jolted Valeria out of her paralysis. She turned and sprang toward the door, but with a movement that would have shamed a leaping panther, Tascela was before her. Valeria struck at her with her clenched fist, and all the power of her supple body behind the blow. It would have stretched a man senseless on the floor. But with a lithe twist of her torso, Tascela avoided the blow and caught the pirate"s wrist. The next instant Valeria"s left hand was imprisoned, and holding her wrists together with one hand, Tascela calmly bound them with a cord she drew from her girdle. Valeria thought she had tasted the ultimate in humiliation already that night, but her shame at being manhandled by Olmec was nothing to the sensations that now shook her supple frame.
Valeria had always been inclined to despise the other members of her s.e.x; and it was overwhelming to encounter another woman who could handle her like a child. She scarcely resisted at all when Tascela forced her into a chair and drawing her bound wrists down between her knees, fastened them to the chair.
Casually stepping over Olmec, Tascela walked to the bronze door and shot the bolt and threw it open, revealing a hallway without.
"Opening upon this hall," she remarked, speaking to her feminine captive for the first time, "there is a chamber which in old times was used as a torture room. When we retired into Tecuhltli, we brought most of the apparatus with us, but there was one piece too heavy to move. It is still in working order. I think it will be quite convenient now."
An understanding flame of terror rose in Olmec"s eyes. Tascela strode back to him, bent and gripped him by the hair.
"He is only paralyzed temporarily," she remarked conversationally. "He can hear, think, and feel--aye, he can feel very well indeed!"
With which sinister observation she started toward the door, dragging the giant bulk with an ease that made the pirate"s eyes dilate. She pa.s.sed into the hall and moved down it without hesitation, presently disappearing with her captive into a chamber that opened into it, and whence shortly thereafter issued the clank of iron.
Valeria swore softly and tugged vainly, with her legs braced against the chair. The cords that confined her were apparently unbreakable.
Tascela presently returned alone; behind her a m.u.f.fled groaning issued from the chamber. She closed the door but did not bolt it. Tascela was beyond the grip of habit, as she was beyond the touch of other human instincts and emotions.
Valeria sat dumbly, watching the woman in whose slim hands, the pirate realized, her destiny now rested.
Tascela grasped her yellow locks and forced back her head, looking impersonally down into her face. But the glitter in her dark eyes was not impersonal.
"I have chosen you for a great honor," she said. "You shall restore the youth of Tascela. Oh, you stare at that! My appearance is that of youth, but through my veins creeps the sluggish chill of approaching age, as I have felt it a thousand times before. I am old, so old I do not remember my childhood. But I was a girl once, and a priest of Stygia loved me, and gave me the secret of immortality and youth everlasting. He died, then--some said by poison. But I dwelt in my palace by the sh.o.r.es of Lake Zuad and the pa.s.sing years touched me not. So at last a king of Stygia desired me, and my people rebelled and brought me to this land.
Olmec called me a princess. I am not of royal blood. I am greater than a princess. I am Tascela, whose youth your own glorious youth shall restore."
Valeria"s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She sensed here a mystery darker than the degeneracy she had antic.i.p.ated.
The taller woman unbound the Aquilonian"s wrists and pulled her to her feet. It was not fear of the dominant strength that lurked in the princess" limbs that made Valeria a helpless, quivering captive in her hands. It was the burning, hypnotic, terrible eyes of Tascela.
_7. He Comes from the Dark_
"Well, I"m a Kus.h.i.te!"
Conan glared down at the man on the iron rack.
"What the devil are _you_ doing on that thing?"
Incoherent sounds issued from behind the gag and Conan bent and tore it away, evoking a bellow of fear from the captive; for his action caused the iron ball to lurch down until it nearly touched the broad breast.
"Be careful, for Set"s sake!" begged Olmec.
"What for?" demanded Conan. "Do you think I care what happens to you? I only wish I had time to stay here and watch that chunk of iron grind your guts out. But I"m in a hurry. Where"s Valeria?"
"Loose me!" urged Olmec, "I will tell you all!"
"Tell me first."
"Never!" The prince"s heavy jaws set stubbornly.
"All right." Conan seated himself on a near-by bench. "I"ll find her myself, after you"ve been reduced to a jelly. I believe I can speed up that process by twisting my sword-point around in your ear," he added, extending the weapon experimentally.
"Wait!" Words came in a rush from the captive"s ashy lips. "Tascela took her from me. I"ve never been anything but a puppet in Tascela"s hands."
"Tascela?" snorted Conan, and spat. "Why, the filthy----"
"No, no!" panted Olmec. "It"s worse than you think. Tascela is old--centuries old. She renews her life and her youth by the sacrifice of beautiful young women. That"s one thing that has reduced the clan to its present state. She will draw the essence of Valeria"s life into her own body, and bloom with fresh vigor and beauty."
"Are the doors locked?" asked Conan, thumbing his sword edge.
"Aye! But I know a way to get into Tecuhltli. Only Tascela and I know, and she thinks me helpless and you slain. Free me and I swear I will help you rescue Valeria. Without my help you cannot win into Tecuhltli; for even if you tortured me into revealing the secret, you couldn"t work it. Let me go, and we will steal on Tascela and kill her before she can work magic--before she can fix her eyes on us. A knife thrown from behind will do the work. I should have killed her thus long ago, but I feared that without her to aid us the Xotalancas would overcome us. She needed my help, too; that"s the only reason she let me live this long.