In a dank, spherical chamber built of solid blocks of carved basalt, covered with rime and nitre, the echo of the Western Sea resonating from the narrow passageway that led to the outside, a group of slight, dark-robed figures stood vigil over their naked captive, a slender, struggling girl. Her mouth was gagged, and yet her dark eyes pleaded desperately as she struggled against her bonds.
Yet it was to no avail. Two of the dark figures, holding her hand and foot, forced her face toward a bronze bowl covered in twisted, inhuman carvings and cryptical glyphs which sat on a tripod over glowing embers. With a flash in the dim torchlight, another of the dark ones whipped out a bronze knife, slicing the girl's throat from ear to ear. As she convulsed in her death agony, her frail spirit departing her ruined flame, a torrent of smoking blood poured out, and the chamber was filled with a foul stench.
After some minutes, the girl's limp body was drained of blood, and hung limply in the wiry grip of her captors. Meanwhile, the dark one who had slain her muttered a series of grim incantations over the incarnadined bowl, the dark blood within smoking and bubbling fiercely as the coals pushed it to boiling.
With a sudden cry, the corpose of the girl lurched upwards as the grim men present watched silently. Then her lithe frame shifted unnaturally, as if he were a puppet on a string. A husky, hollow voice which was not her own issued forth from behind her dead lips, even though her severed throat alone should have rendered that impossible.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" The syllables were harsh and garbled, forming words not meant to be uttered by human mouths.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" intoned the dark ones in response. Then one of their number spoke to the possessed corpse of their victim.
"All is as you have foreseen, O deathless one!" he cried. "The outlander from beyond the Eastern Sea has acted in all ways according to the prophecy! The false god Kukulkan – " he spat on the floor on saying the name, accompanied by his fellows – "has had his cult despoiled, his temple defiled, his priests slain. He has been denied his sacrifices by his own puppet, his own Feathered Serpent, the King of Xlantlantaca and Mayapan! His age is at an end, and your return, O mighty Kuthlan, is at hand!"
"Trust not the Feathered Serpent!" croaked the one possessed in reply, her body rigid and strained to bursting by the power of the being who spoke through her.
"He serves his own ends! And do not underestimate Kukulkan, no matter the insults to his cult, for he is ever false and guilesome, and I am in great peril from his wiles. For the Crystal Skull, through which a treacherous priest of Lemuria devised a portal to the heart of my own powers, lies now within the grasp of Kukulkan thanks to the meddling of the Feathered Serpent, of this Conan of the lands beyond the Eastern Sea. Only the slenderest thread of fate prevents the Crystal Skull from falling into my enemy's scaly claws! Should that happen, should he unlock its power for himself, his victory over me shall be complete, and this world shall forever fall within his grasp! Never again shall I rise from my watery tomb!"
There was a murmur amongst the dark ones, as they whispered in consternation amongst themselves. Then the bravest amongst them spoke again.
"Then what are your commands, O giver of freedom to men?" said he.
"One of my followers, in secret, has insinuated themselves very close to this Conan," replied the possessed avatar of Kuthlan. "They will send him to you when the time is right; for he has made a bargain with Kukulkan which he now seeks to break, though he has no means to do so. You will provide him with that means, in which I shall instruct you when the time is right. Then I shall dispel Kukulkan to the void eternally, and this world and all that lies within shall be mine to raven and devour! And yet there shall be rewards enough for my faithful servants."
"We hear and obey, O deathless one who shall make us deathless!" intoned the cultists. The one possessed then gave a violent shudder, only to drop suddenly to the floor as the men released their grasp, still where she lay and now mercifully at rest. s
"For all those who serve the lord of the deeps," intoned one of the cultists with a ritual gesture towards the slain victim, "death is merely a slumber. They shall awake in freedom and glory when the dreaming god awakes, and the world is reborn in a holocaust of flame and ecstasy! All hail Kuthlan!"
"All hail Kuthlan!" replied his comrades fiercely.
"And who is this member of our cult, deep inside the palace of our enemies?" asked another. "For we know that none of the Quechanlti remained in Xlantlantaca more than a few months after the great Battle of the Reeds."
"That is not for us to know at this time," replied the first, evidently their leader. "We must merely wait, and prepare. It is enough for us to know that on what seems the threshold of his ultimate triumph, the demon-spawn Kukulkan faces his ultimate doom – for the stars are right, and the return of great Kuthlan is at hand. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"