Conan the Barbarian by L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter Page A

the sheathing ice. A cold wind came up and tugged at his cloak as if to hold him back. Still he persevered and made some progress. Pausing to catch his breath at last, he turned to see a dozen gaunt, dark-furred forms lope into view. The wolves’ eyes burned like glowing coals through the gathering murk, as the grey light faded from the clouded heavens.
    Seeing their quarry trying to escape, the pack broke into a chorus of snarls. Just before the foremost reached the foot of the rock pile, Conan found a smooth, upright slab which thrust up from the side of the knoll. In shape it was oddly symmetrical, as though hewn by artisans of some forgotten race and set there for a marker. Conan neither knew or cared about that; the slab was something he could stand against, something to protect his back.
    Whining and growling, the wolves threaded a passage between the boulders, scrambling for footholds as they clawed their way up the rough hillside. One leaped high in the air to snap at the Cimmerian’s leg, but a slash of his dirk caught the beast across its muzzle. With a yelp of pain, it fell back, giving its prey a moment’s respite.
    As he inched along the ledge that fronted the vertical slab, in search of a more secure footing, Conan’s fingers found a narrow gap in the rock. A quick glance revealed a dark opening, just wide enough for a man to slip through sidewise. Once within the sheltering cleft, however small the space, he knew that he would gain an advantage against his pursuers.
    Lithe as a panther, Conan wriggled through the slot in the stone; but his cloak caught on a jagged rock and was tom from his shoulders. Through the aperture, he watched the wolves hurl themselves upon the fur, their fangs ripping the bear’s hide to ribbons.
    For some reason that he could not fathom, the animals did not even try to squirm through the opening. From the way they whined and scratched against the slab, he sensed that, starving though they were, they feared to pass through this mysterious stone portal.
    Turning, Conan found himself in a larger space than he had expected, a stone-walled cubicle with a flat; stone-paved floor. The regularity of the floor and walls gave the barbarian youth an uneasy premonition that the chamber had been fashioned by intelligent beings, human or otherwise. He felt his way in the dark along the smooth wall and came to an opening through which a flight of smoothly-chiselled stone steps descended into deeper darkness. He followed them to their foot.
    On the lower level, the floor seemed littered with debris, rotted cloth intermixed with hard lumps that he could not at first identify. He gathered up a handful of the unseen litter, wondering if it were combustible. He felt in his pouch for the flint and steel he had taken from the dead Hyrkanian. Soon he had a small flame burning, for the cloth was dry and ignited easily.
    By this feeble orange light, Conan saw that the walls were embellished with polished stone reliefs, an intricate mixture of bizarre figures and forms unknown to him. Examining the floor, he found it cluttered with skulls and bones, the remains of at least a score of human beings. He saw that the bones were clean and dry, the flesh having long since disintegrated into dust.
    Peering deeper into the gloom, Conan discovered a huge throne, carved from a block of some opalescent material such as marble or alabaster. On this seat of honour sat an enormous skeletal warrior, still clad in copper armour of a strange design, turned green by the corrosion of many years. Conan guessed that the living man whose bones these were had been half again as tall as he, perhaps a member of a long-forgotten race.
    Lighting his way with a rude torch fashioned from a femur wrapped in a piece of rotting cloth, Conan approached the armed figure. Beneath the shadow of the heavy helm, the face of the skull seemed frozen in a silent scream. Across the spread knees of the armoured skeleton lay a great sword, sheathed