Conan Of The Isles

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN GATES OF DOOM

Springing forward, Conan swung his long stone club with the courage of desperation. With a thud, it caught the foremost of the giant reptiles on its scaly snout. The stalactite broke in half with a loud crack, and the thick end fell to the ground with a thump.

Hissing furiously, the dragon started back, baring its fangs and lashing its tail. In all the centuries that it had dwelt under Ptahuacan, never had one of its victims turned upon it, let alone given it a painful clout on the nose. The dragon was out of practice at overcoming live prey, and Oman's blow astonished and bewildered its small, reptilian mind as much as it angered it.

Conan's weapon was now reduced to a two-foot spike of limestone. Still, he thought, it was sharp enough to thrust into one of the great, green eyes that blinked at him from the semicircle of scaly heads. And if he could thrust it up to the end, it might reach the sluggish little brain behind the eye. Not, he knew, that this would save him; for such creatures took a long time to realize that they were dead.

But, at least, the dragons would know they had been in a fight. As a couple of the giant lizards hitched themselves closer - practically within snapping distance - Conan rose on the balls of his feet, holding the spike like a dagger. In an instant he would hurl himself at the head of the nearest dragon...

Then came an interruption. Down through the shaft in the ceiling, whence came the beam of light that shone down upon a spot of floor and illumined the entire chamber, something fell to land with a thud on the illuminated spot. It was a naked corpse, whose chest cavity gaped with a huge, ghastly wound.

Grunting, the dragon that Conan had struck wheeled around and waddled quickly over to the corpse. Such unresisting food was more to its taste than creatures that gave it a rap on the nose, merely because it tried to eat them. As the first dragon turned away, another and then another imitated its action, until they were all brainlessly streaming away across the cavern floor.

As the first dragon reached the corpse, it scooped the upper part of the dead man's body up into its vast jaws, turning its head sideways to do so. But, as it raised its head, a second dragon grabbed the dangling legs of the corpse. The two reptiles engaged in a grisly rug-of-war, grunting and wagging their massive heads from side to side, while others crowded round, trying to snatch a piece of the corpse.

Presently, the body tore in half with a rending sound. The two dragons that had first seized it backed away to gulp down their portions, while the others scrambled for the entrails that had spilled out on the ground.

In a flash of insight, Conan understood much that had puzzled him. For one thing, he had wondered what such huge flesh-eaters could find to live on in this maze of caverns. Bats and luminous grubs would surely not sustain them, but a steady supply of sacrificial victims would support them in draconian luxury. The girl Catlaxoc and the arch-thief Metemphoc had both described the mass sacrifices to Xotli, and the corpses had to be disposed of somehow. This arrangement explained the fact that, when he had first entered the cavern, Conan had found a half-dozen dragons crouched in a circle beneath the shafts with heads expectantly raised.

Then, too, Conan realized what must have happened to him. His travels through this underground realm had taken him round in a circle. He had originally planned to emerge from the subterranean labyrinth under the Vestibule of the Gods. This grim gray edifice rose on the square of the temple pyramid, and in it the slaves and captives destined for sacrifice, including his own crew, were held.

Instead, the battle with the rats had driven him off his course, and his fall into the underground river had resulted in his being carried still farther away from his memorized route. But some whim of fate or of the gods had brought him around in a loop, returning him at length to the place he first meant to reach, or at least very near it.

The falling body, Conan was sure, was part of the exhausted surplus of the sacrifice, in which hearts were torn from living victims. The shaft down which the corpse had fallen probably extended up through the pyramid to an opening near the top. Therefore, he reasoned, he must be directly beneath the pyramid - or at least under the square surrounding it.

All this flashed through Conan's mind in the space of three heartbeats. As the monsters turned away from him, he dashed around the perimeter of the chamber to the vertical ladder, made of pegs driven into holes in the wall, which led from the floor of the cave up to the platform on which the Antillian guard was stationed. This guard no longer lounged lethargically; he pointed at Conan with astonishment and shouted unintelligible questions.

Conan reached the foot of the ladder. The guard was armed, and it would not be easy to climb to the platform in the face of his weapons. But then a dragon, who had failed to get a piece in the scramble for the corpse, turned back toward Conan, its long, forked tongue flicking out. Conan decided to chance the guard rather than again face the horde of giant lizards.

With the speed of a monkey scrambling out of the way of a lion, Conan went up the ladder. By the time the first of the reptiles had reached its foot, he was twenty feet up, well out of their reach.

Next, he had to cope with the guard. He drew the dirk from the sheath at his back and put the blade between his teeth. Then he resumed his climb.

Soon he found himself staring up into the astonished brown face of the guard, who squatted at the edge of his platform. The man jabbered at Conan and threateningly waved his glass-bladed sword.

Holding a rung just out of the guard's reach with his left hand, Conan hooked a knee around a rung to give himself purchase. Then he took the dirk from between his teeth. Closing one eye to sight on the guard's form, he brought his right arm slowly back - then sharply forward. The dirk flashed through the air, struck the guard in the hollow at the base of his throat, and buried itself halfway to the hilt.

With a choking gurgle, the guard staggered to his feet. He dropped his sword with a clatter to clutch at the blade buried in his throat. Then he teetered forward and plunged off the platform. Conan had to fend off his falling body to keep from being knocked off the ladder himself. The guard struck the floor of the chamber with a thud. A strangled shriek was cut off by the crunch of a pair of dragon's jaws. From below., sounds of another reptilian feast wafted up.

Breathing hard, Conan hauled himself up to the platform and sat down on the edge with his booted feet dangling. The last hour had seen him through some of the closest calls of an adventurous life.

Some dragons remained at the foot of the ladder, gazing hopefully up at him. Little by little they trailed away. Those that had failed to fill their bellies from the recent windfalls resumed their circle around the bright spot in the center of the floor. Presently, with a whistle and a thump., another mutilated corpse fell down the shaft, to be pounced upon and squabbled over by the scaly reception committee.

Having recovered from his exertions, Conan got up and explored. Behind the platform was a tunnel closed by a bronze grille. Beyond the grille, steps led up into the gloom. The grille opened at Conan's touch. Inside this gate was a large recess in the wall, and in this recess a gigantic bronze wheel was mounted. The spokes projected beyond the rim to form handles, so that it resembled, on a larger scale, one of the tiller wheels that Conan had seen on large Zingaran galleons. The wheel was thick with the green, waxy coating of verdigris. It must have stood there for ages since last being turned.

Conan frowned in thought. His gaze wandered to the huge bronze doors across the chamber, beyond the circle of ghoulishly waiting dragons. Why should those doors have been put there in the first place? They must have cost the folk of Ptahuacan a tremendous lot of labor to install. Presumably, a passage led from the other side of them to the world above. But all they were good for was to loose the horde of dragons upon the citizens. Why should the hierarch wish any such thing?

The answer came to Conan's mind with a snap. The dragons served a double purpose. Not only did they dispose of the remains of the sacrificial victims., but also they served as a last-ditch secret weapon, in case the downtrodden populace should rise in rebellion against the priesthood.

And how were they opened? Conan could not be sure, but his glance strayed back to the ancient bronze wheel.

Out in the square, the sacrifice to Xotli must be taking place. Perhaps it had been going on for hours. The square would be packed with people, with the place of honor, nearest to the dragon gates, reserved for the priestly hierarchy. A glorious plan took form in Conan's brain...

Conan stepped through the grille and confronted the wheel. He drew a deep breath, set his burly shoulders to it, and put a surge of strength behind it. Metal groaned under pressure. Conan's boots slid and grated on the stone floor.

He relaxed, took several deep breaths, and tried again. The sinews writhed across his back and shoulders. Somewhere on the other side of the wall, tortured metal squeaked and groaned. Dust and dislodged particles of dirt pattered down. The wheel moved a fingerbreadth, then a fingerbreadth more, with a shriek of metal forced into motion after aeons of inactivity.

Again Conan strained at the wheel., gripping the spokes so fiercely that it almost seemed as if his white-knuckled fingers would sink into the bronze. He heaved until the blood pounded in his temples and roared in his ears. The wheel lurched and revolved several inches. Within the wall somewhere, ponderous counterweights boomed into motion.

Across the chamber, a crack of light appeared between the valves of the great bronze door.

Another heave, and the motion of the wheel became suddenly easier. From beyond the wall came the growl and rumble of the ancient mechanism, forced into motion after so many quiet centuries.

The crack between the doors widened. With a clank of engaging machinery, the wheel began to spin of its own accord, faster and faster. The valves of the bronze door swung wide on screaming hinges. The dragons, which had been peering and shuffling about uneasily as these unaccustomed noises came to their ears, turned toward the opening doors.

Beyond the doors, a steep ramp led up, then turned sharply out of sight. Light came down from above - good, strong daylight. Conan inferred that another pair of doors at the top of the ramp had opened at the same time. These must be in the base of the pyramid or in one of the buildings surrounding the square.

As Conan, gasping for breath, collapsed over the wheel, the dragons, emitting excited bellows, waddled through the open doors. With claws scraping and slipping on the ramp, they poured up the slope and out of sight. From the dark mouths of the tunnels that opened into the chamber, more dragons appeared, roused from their long slumbers by the noise of the mechanism and the roars of their fellows. These joined the procession up the ramp, until forty-odd of the creatures had passed out of sight on their way to the upper world whence a sudden chorus of horrified shrieks wafted faintly down into the chamber.

Still panting, Conan lay against the bottom of the bronze wheel, waiting for his heart to slow down from its wild pounding and smiling grimly through his stiff, gray beard.