Red Nails

by Robert E. Howard

  _6. The Eyes of Tascela_

  "Why did you bring me into this chamber to bandage my legs?" demandedValeria. "Couldn't you have done it just as well in the throne room?"

  She sat on a couch with her wounded leg extended upon it, and theTecuhltli woman had just bound it with silk bandages. Valeria'sred-stained sword lay on the couch beside her.

  She frowned as she spoke. The woman had done her task silently andefficiently, but Valeria liked neither the lingering, caressing touch ofher slim fingers nor the expression in her eyes.

  "They have taken the rest of the wounded into the other chambers,"answered the woman in the soft speech of the Tecuhltli women, whichsomehow did not suggest either softness or gentleness in the speakers. Alittle while before, Valeria had seen this same woman stab a Xotalancawoman through the breast and stamp the eyeballs out of a woundedXotalanca man.

  "They will be carrying the corpses of the dead down into the catacombs,"she added, "lest the ghosts escape into the chambers and dwell there."

  "Do you believe in ghosts?" asked Valeria.

  "I know the ghost of Tolkemec dwells in the catacombs," she answeredwith a shiver. "Once I saw it, as I crouched in a crypt among the bonesof a dead queen. It passed by in the form of an ancient man with flowingwhite beard and locks, and luminous eyes that blazed in the darkness. Itwas Tolkemec; I saw him living when I was a child and he was beingtortured."

  Her voice sank to a fearful whisper: "Olmec laughs, but I _know_Tolkemec's ghost dwells in the catacombs! They say it is rats which gnawthe flesh from the bones of the newly dead--but ghosts eat flesh. Whoknows but that----"

  She glanced up quickly as a shadow fell across the couch. Valeria lookedup to see Olmec gazing down at her. The prince had cleansed his hands,torso and beard of the blood that had splashed them; but he had notdonned his robe, and his great dark-skinned hairless body and limbsrenewed the impression of strength bestial in its nature. His deep blackeyes burned with a more elemental light, and there was the suggestion ofa twitching in the fingers that tugged at his thick blue-black beard.

  He stared fixedly at the woman, and she rose and glided from thechamber. As she passed through the door she cast a look over hershoulder at Valeria, a glance full of cynical derision and obscenemockery.

  "She has done a clumsy job," criticized the prince, coming to the divanand bending over the bandage. "Let me see----"

  With a quickness amazing in one of his bulk he snatched her sword andthrew it across the chamber. His next move was to catch her in his giantarms.

  Quick and unexpected as the move was, she almost matched it; for even ashe grabbed her, her dirk was in her hand and she stabbed murderously athis throat. More by luck than skill he caught her wrist, and then begana savage wrestling-match. She fought him with fists, feet, knees, teethand nails, with all the strength of her magnificent body and all theknowledge of hand-to-hand fighting she had acquired in her years ofroving and fighting on sea and land. It availed her nothing against hisbrute strength. She lost her dirk in the first moment of contact, andthereafter found herself powerless to inflict any appreciable pain onher giant attacker.

  The blaze in his weird black eyes did not alter, and their expressionfilled her with fury, fanned by the sardonic smile that seemed carvedupon his bearded lips. Those eyes and that smile contained all the cruelcynicism that seethes below the surface of a sophisticated anddegenerate race, and for the first time in her life Valeria experiencedfear of a man. It was like struggling against some huge elemental force;his iron arms thwarted her efforts with an ease that sent panic racingthrough her limbs. He seemed impervious to any pain she could indict.Only once, when she sank her white teeth savagely into his wrist so thatthe blood started, did he react. And that was to buffet her brutallyupon the side of the head with his open hand, so that stars flashedbefore her eyes and her head rolled on her shoulders.

  Her shirt had been torn open in the struggle, and with cynical crueltyhe rasped his thick beard across her bare breasts, bringing the blood tosuffuse the fair skin, and fetching a cry of pain and outraged fury fromher. Her convulsive resistance was useless; she was crushed down on acouch, disarmed and panting, her eyes blazing up at him like the eyes ofa trapped tigress.

  A moment later he was hurrying from the chamber, carrying her in hisarms. She made no resistance, but the smoldering of her eyes showed thatshe was unconquered in spirit, at least. She had not cried out. She knewthat Conan was not within call, and it did not occur to her that any inTecuhltli would oppose their prince. But she noticed that Olmec wentstealthily, with his head on one side as if listening for sounds ofpursuit, and he did not return to the throne chamber. He carried herthrough a door that stood opposite that through which he had entered,crossed another room and began stealing down a hall. As she becameconvinced that he feared some opposition to the abduction, she threwback her head and screamed at the top of her lusty voice.

  She was rewarded by a slap that half stunned her, and Olmec quickenedhis pace to a shambling run.

  But her cry had been echoed, and twisting her head about, Valeria,through the tears and stars that partly blinded her, saw Techotl limpingafter them.

  Olmec turned with a snarl, shifting the woman to an uncomfortable andcertainly undignified position under one huge arm, where he held herwrithing and kicking vainly, like a child.

  "Olmec!" protested Techotl. "You cannot be such a dog as to do thisthing! She is Conan's woman! She helped us slay the Xotalancas, and----"

  * * * * *

  Without a word Olmec balled his free hand into a huge fist and stretchedthe wounded warrior senseless at his feet. Stooping, and hindered not atall by the struggles and imprecations of his captive, he drew Techotl'ssword from its sheath and stabbed the warrior in the breast. Thencasting aside the weapon he fled on along the corridor. He did not see awoman's dark face peer cautiously after him from behind a hanging. Itvanished, and presently Techotl groaned and stirred, rose dazedly andstaggered drunkenly away, calling Conan's name.

  Olmec hurried on down the corridor, and descended a winding ivorystaircase. He crossed several corridors and halted at last in a broadchamber whose doors were veiled with heavy tapestries, with oneexception--a heavy bronze door similar to the Door of the Eagle on theupper floor.

  He was moved to rumble, pointing to it: "That is one of the outer doorsof Tecuhltli. For the first time in fifty years it is unguarded. We neednot guard it now, for Xotalanc is no more."

  "Thanks to Conan and me, you bloody rogue!" sneered Valeria, tremblingwith fury and the shame of physical coercion. "You treacherous dog!Conan will cut your throat for this!"

  Olmec did not bother to voice his belief that Conan's own gullet hadalready been severed according to his whispered command. He was tooutterly cynical to be at all interested in her thoughts or opinions. Hisflame-lit eyes devoured her, dwelling burningly on the generous expansesof clear white flesh exposed where her shirt and breeches had been tornin the struggle.

  "Forget Conan," he said thickly. "Olmec is lord of Xuchotl. Xotalanc isno more. There will be no more fighting. We shall spend our lives indrinking and love-making. First let us drink!"

  He seated himself on an ivory table and pulled her down on his knees,like a dark-skinned satyr with a white nymph in his arms. Ignoring herun-nymphlike profanity, he held her helpless with one great arm abouther waist while the other reached across the table and secured a vesselof wine.

  "Drink!" he commanded, forcing it to her lips, as she writhed her headaway.

  The liquor slopped over, stinging her lips, splashing down on her nakedbreasts.

  "Your guest does not like your wine, Olmec," spoke a cool, sardonicvoice.

  Olmec stiffened; fear grew in his flaming eyes. Slowly he swung hisgreat head about and stared at Tascela who posed negligently in thecurtained doorway, one hand on her smooth hip. Valeria twisted herselfabout in his iron grip, and when she met the burning eyes of Tascela, achill tingled along her supple spine. New e
xperiences were floodingValeria'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 smallgold vessel.

  "I feared she would not like your wine, Olmec," purred the princess, "soI brought some of mine, some I brought with me long ago from the shoresof 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 reasontold her to dart from the room, some fascination she could notunderstand held her rigid, watching the scene.

  Tascela came toward the seated prince with a swaying, undulating walkthat 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 ourhandsome 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 wascontorted and with an appalling show of strength her hand lockedconvulsively in his beard and tore out a great handful. This evidence ofunnatural strength was no more terrifying than the momentary baring ofthe hellish fury that raged under her bland exterior.

  Olmec lurched up with a roar, and stood swaying like a bear, his mightyhands clenching and unclenching.

  "Slut!" His booming voice filled the room. "Witch! She-devil! Tecuhltlishould have slain you fifty years ago! Begone! I have endured too muchfrom you! This white-skinned wench is mine! Get hence before I slayyou!"

  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, andbecause you loved me, you slept in my arms beneath the enchantedlotus--and thereby put into my hands the chains that enslaved you. Youknow you cannot withstand me. You know I have but to gaze into youreyes, with the mystic power a priest of Stygia taught me, long ago, andyou are powerless. You remember the night beneath the black lotus thatwaved above us, stirred by no worldly breeze; you scent again theunearthly perfumes that stole and rose like a cloud about you to enslaveyou. You cannot fight against me. You are my slave as you were thatnight--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 runningthrough starlit darkness. She leaned close to the prince and spread herlong tapering fingers upon his giant breast. His eyes glazed, his greathands fell limply to his sides.

  With a smile of cruel malice, Tascela lifted the vessel and placed it tohis lips.

  "Drink!"

  Mechanically the prince obeyed. And instantly the glaze passed from hiseyes and they were flooded with fury, comprehension and an awful fear.His mouth gaped, but no sound issued. For an instant he reeled onbuckling knees, and then fell in a sodden heap on the floor.

  His fall jolted Valeria out of her paralysis. She turned and sprangtoward the door, but with a movement that would have shamed a leapingpanther, Tascela was before her. Valeria struck at her with her clenchedfist, and all the power of her supple body behind the blow. It wouldhave stretched a man senseless on the floor. But with a lithe twist ofher torso, Tascela avoided the blow and caught the pirate's wrist. Thenext instant Valeria's left hand was imprisoned, and holding her wriststogether with one hand, Tascela calmly bound them with a cord she drewfrom her girdle. Valeria thought she had tasted the ultimate inhumiliation already that night, but her shame at being manhandled byOlmec was nothing to the sensations that now shook her supple frame.Valeria had always been inclined to despise the other members of hersex; and it was overwhelming to encounter another woman who could handleher like a child. She scarcely resisted at all when Tascela forced herinto 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 shotthe bolt and threw it open, revealing a hallway without.

  "Opening upon this hall," she remarked, speaking to her feminine captivefor the first time, "there is a chamber which in old times was used as atorture room. When we retired into Tecuhltli, we brought most of theapparatus with us, but there was one piece too heavy to move. It isstill in working order. I think it will be quite convenient now."

  An understanding flame of terror rose in Olmec's eyes. Tascela strodeback to him, bent and gripped him by the hair.

  "He is only paralyzed temporarily," she remarked conversationally. "Hecan hear, think, and feel--aye, he can feel very well indeed!"

  With which sinister observation she started toward the door, draggingthe giant bulk with an ease that made the pirate's eyes dilate. Shepassed into the hall and moved down it without hesitation, presentlydisappearing with her captive into a chamber that opened into it, andwhence shortly thereafter issued the clank of iron.

  Valeria swore softly and tugged vainly, with her legs braced against thechair. The cords that confined her were apparently unbreakable.

  Tascela presently returned alone; behind her a muffled groaning issuedfrom the chamber. She closed the door but did not bolt it. Tascela wasbeyond the grip of habit, as she was beyond the touch of other humaninstincts and emotions.

  Valeria sat dumbly, watching the woman in whose slim hands, the piraterealized, her destiny now rested.

  Tascela grasped her yellow locks and forced back her head, lookingimpersonally down into her face. But the glitter in her dark eyes wasnot impersonal.

  "I have chosen you for a great honor," she said. "You shall restore theyouth 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 Ihave felt it a thousand times before. I am old, so old I do not remembermy 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 shores ofLake Zuad and the passing years touched me not. So at last a king ofStygia 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 aprincess. I am Tascela, whose youth your own glorious youth shallrestore."

  Valeria's tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. She sensed here amystery darker than the degeneracy she had anticipated.

  The taller woman unbound the Aquilonian's wrists and pulled her to herfeet. It was not fear of the dominant strength that lurked in theprincess' limbs that made Valeria a helpless, quivering captive in herhands. It was the burning, hypnotic, terrible eyes of Tascela.