"L. Sprague De Camp - Conan 26 - The Castle of Terror" - читать интересную книгу автора (De Camp L Sprague)

enormous ruinтАФwhether the serpent men of Valusian legend or some other forgotten raceтАФhad
drenched the marble altars of the black castle with the blood of thousands. The ghosts of their victims
were chained forever to this castle of terror. Perhaps they were held earthbound by some powerful spell
of prehuman sorcery. Perhaps it was the same spell that kept out the beasts of the veldt.
But this was not all. The ghosts of the black castle hungered for the blood of the livingтАФfor the blood
oft Conan. |
His exhausted body lay chained in ensorcelled slumber while shadowy phantoms flitted about him,
tearing at him with impalpable fingers. But a spirit cannot harm a living being unless it first manifests
itself on the physical plane and assumes material form. These gibbering shadow hordes were weak. Not
for years had a man defied the ancient curse to set foot within the black castle, enabling them to feed.
Enfeebled by long starvation, they could no longer easily materialize into a shambling horde of ghoul-
things.
Somehow, the spirit of the dreaming Conan knew this. While his body slept on, his ka observed
movements on the astral plane and watched the vampiric shadows as they beat insubstantial wings about
his sleeping head
and slashed with impalpable claws at his pulsing throat But for all their voiceless frenzy, they could
harm him not. Bound by the spell, he slept on.
After an indefinite time, a change took place in die ruddy luminance of the astral plane. The specters
were clustering together into a shapeless mass of thickening shadows. Mindless dead things though they
were, hunger drove them into an uncanny alliance. Each ghost possessed a small store of that vital
energy that went toward bodily materialization. Now each phantom mingled its slim supply of energy
with that of its shadowy brethren.
Gradually, a terrible shape, fed by the life force of ten thousand ghosts, began to materialize. In the dim
gloom of the black marble balcony, it slowly formed out of a swirling cloud of shadowy particles.
And Conan slept on.
6. The Hundred Heads
Thunder crashed deafeningly, lightning blazed with sulfurous fires above the darkened plain, whence the
moonlight had fled again. The thick-piled storm clouds burst, soaking the grassy swales with a torrential
downpour.
The Stygian slave raiders had ridden all night, pressing southward toward the forests beyond Kush.
Their expedition had thus far been fruitless; not one black of the nomadic hunting and herding tribes of
the savanna had fallen into their hands. Whether war or pestilence had swept the land bare of

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humankind, or whether the tribesmen, warned of the coming of the slavers, had fled beyond reach, they
did not know.
In any case, it seemed that they would do better among the lush jungles of the South. The forest Negroes
dwelt in permanent villages, which the slavers could surround and take by surprise with a quick dawn
rush, catching the inhabitants like fish in a net. Villagers too old, too young, or too sickly to endure the
trek back to Stygia they would slay out of hand. Then they would drive the remaining wretches, fettered
together to form a human chain, northward.
There were forty Stygians, well-mounted warriors in helms and chain-mail hauberks. They were tall,
swarthy, hawk-faced men, powerfully muscled. They were hardened maraudersтАФtough, shrewd,
fearless, and merciless, with no more compunction about killing a non-Stygian than most men have
about slipping a gnat
Now the first downpour of the storm swept their column. Winds whipped their woolen cloaks and linen
robes and blew their horses manes into their faces. The almost continuous blaze of lightning dazzled
them.