Valley of the Worm by Robert E. Howard Page B

the priestesses of Derketo ever dreamed. They live only for sensual joys. Dreaming or waking, their lives are filled with exotic ecstasies, beyond the ken of ordinary men.”
    “Damned degenerates!” growled Conan.
    “It is all in the point of view,” smiled Thalis lazily.
    “Well,” he decided, “we’re merely wasting time. I can see this is no place for ordinary mortals. We’ll be gone before your morons awake, or Thog comes to devour us. I think the desert would be kinder.”
    Natala, whose blood had curdled in her veins at Thalis’ words, fervently agreed. She could speak Stygian only brokenly, but she understood it well enough. Conan stood up, drawing her up beside him.
    “If you’ll show us the nearest way out of this city,” he grunted, “we’ll take ourselves off.” But his gaze lingered on the Stygian’s sleek limbs and ivory breasts.
    She did not miss his look, and she smiled enigmatically as she rose with the lithe ease of a great lazy cat.
    “Follow me,” she directed and led the way, conscious of Conan’s eyes fixed on her supple figure and perfectly poised carriage. She did not go the way they had come, but before Conan’s suspicions could be roused, she halted in a wide ivory-cased chamber, and pointed to a tiny fountain which gurgled in the center of the ivory floor.
    “Don’t you want to wash your face, child?” she asked Natala. “It is stained with dust, and there is dust in your hair.”
    Natala colored resentfully at the suggestion of malice in the Stygian’s faintly mocking tone, but she complied, wondering miserably just how much havoc the desert sun and wind had wrought on her complexion—a feature for which women of her race were justly noted. She knelt beside the fountain, shook back her hair, slipped her tunic down to her waist, and began to lave not only her face, but her white arms and shoulders as well.
    “By Crom!” grumbled Conan. “A woman will stop to consider her beauty, if the devil himself were on her heels. Haste, girl; you’ll be dusty again before we’ve got out of sight of this city. And Thalis, I’d take it kindly if you’d furnish us with a bit of food and drink.”
    For answer Thalis leaned herself against him, slipping one white arm about his bronzed shoulders. Her sleek naked flank pressed against his thigh and the perfume of her foamy hair was in his nostrils.
    “Why dare the desert?” she whispered urgently. “Stay here! I will teach you the ways of Xuthal. I will protect you. I will love you! You are a real man: I am sick of these moon-calves who sigh and dream and wake, and dream again. I am hungry for the hard, clean passion of a man from the earth. The blaze of your dynamic eyes makes my heart pound in my bosom, and the touch of your iron-thewed arm maddens me.
    “Stay here! I will make you king of Xuthal! I will show you all the ancient mysteries, and the exotic ways of pleasure! I—” She had thrown both arms about his neck and was standing on tiptoe, her vibrant body shivering against his. Over her ivory shoulder he saw Natala, throwing back her damp tousled hair, stop short, her lovely eyes dilating, her red lips parting in a shocked O. With an embarrassed grunt, Conan disengaged Thalis’ clinging arms and put her aside with one massive arm. She threw a swift glance at the Brythunian girl and smiled enigmatically, seeming to nod her splendid head in mysterious cogitation.
    Natala rose and jerked up her tunic, her eyes blazing, her lips pouting sulkily. Conan swore under his breath. He was no more monogamous in his nature than the average soldier of fortune, but there was an innate decency about him that was Natala’s best protection.
    Thalis did not press her suit. Beckoning them with her slender hand to follow, she turned and walked across the chamber. There, close to the tapestried wall, she halted suddenly. Conan, watching her, wondered if she had heard the sounds that might be made by a nameless monster stealing through the