"Robert E. Howard - Conan - The Hour of the Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Howard Robert E)

Again a trembling finger warned for silence. The hound outside was no longer howling. He
whimpered, as with an evil dream, and then that sound, too, died away in silence, in which the
yellow-haired man plainly heard the straining of the heavy door, as if something outside pushed
powerfully upon it. He half turned, his hand at his sword, but the man in the ermine robe hissed
an urgent warning: "Stay! Do not break the chain! And on your life do not go to the door!"
The yellow-haired man shrugged and turned back, and then he stopped short, staring. In the
Jade sarcophagus lay a living man: a tall, lusty man, naked, white of skin, and dark of hair and
beard. He lay motionless, his eyes wide open, and blank and unknowing as a newborn babe's. On his
breast the great jewel smoldered and sparkled.
The man in ermine reeled as if from some let-down of extreme tension.
"Ishtar!" he gasped. "It is Xaltotun! - and he lives! Valerius! Tarascus! Amalric! Do you
see? Do you see? You doubted me, but I have not failed! We have been close to the open gates of
hell this night, and the shapes of darkness have gathered close about us - aye, they followed him


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to the very door - but we have brought the great magician back to life."
"And damned our souls to purgatories everlasting, I doubt not," muttered the small, dark man,
Tarascus.
The yellow-haired man, Valerius, laughed harshly.
"What purgatory can be worse than life itself? So we are all damned together from birth.
Besides, who would not sell his miserable soul for a throne?"
"There is no intelligence in his stare, Orastes," said the large man.
"He has long been dead," answered Orastes. "He is as one newly awakened. His mind is empty
after the long sleep - say, he was dead, not sleeping. We brought his spirit back over the voids
and gulfs of night and oblivion. I will speak to him."
He bent over the foot of the sarcophagus, and fixing his gaze on the wide dark eyes of the
man within, he said, slowly: "Awake, Xaltotun!"
The lips of the man moved mechanically. "Xaltotun!" he repeated in a groping whisper.
"You are Xaltotun!" exclaimed Orastes, like a hypnotist driving home his suggestions. "You
are Xaltotun of Python, in Acheron."
A dim flame flickered in the dark eyes.
"I was Xaltotun," he whispered. "I am dead."
"You are Xaltotun!" cried Qrastes. "You are not dead! You live!"
"I am Xaltotun," came the eery whisper. "But I am dead. In my house in Khemi, in Stygia,
there I died."
"And the priests who poisoned you mummified your body with their dark arts, keeping all your
organs intact!" exclaimed Orastes. "But now you live again! The Heart of Ahriman has restored your
life, drawn your spirit back from space and eternity." ' "The Heart of Ahriman!" The flame of
remembrance grew stronger. "The barbarians stole it from me!"
"He remembers," muttered Orastes. "Lift him from the case."
The others obeyed hesitantly, as if reluctant to touch the man they had recreated, and they
seemed not easier in their minds when they felt firm muscular flesh, vibrant with blood and life,
be-neath their fingers. But they lifted him upon the table, and Orastes clothed him in a curious
dark velvet robe, splashed with gold stars and cresent moons, and fastened a cloth-of-gold. fillet
about his temples, confining the black wavy locks that fell to his shoulders. He let them do as
they would, saying nothing, not even when they set him in a carven throne-like chair with a high
ebony back and wide silver arms, and feet like golden claws. He sat there motionless, and slowly