Conan awoke with a gasp, his eyes blurred by the dim half-light of the swamp, his skin covered in its foetid mud and water. For some moments he lay on his back,f breathing heavily, his muscles racked by cramps. Then at length he found the strength to stand to his feet and stare again at the fountain which had done him such harm.

The scene was just as it had been save, that the mirror was once again a plain glass, reflecting back the scene before it according to the laws of nature. But then Conan stared hard at his image and gasped aloud at what he saw.

It was his face, but not as it had been before. Staring back at him was a man with jet-black hair, smooth sun-bronzed skin, taut, square-jawed features, and massive, rippling muscles, who appeared not a day over twenty years of age!

At first Conan believed it was but an illusion, and the mirror mocked him with an image of his long-vanished youth. But then he ran his hand over his face, and realized it felt smooth and young as it had not for many years. His limbs and chest were no longer taut and lean-muscled, but covered with bulging, sculpted muscles as they had been in his prime. And his whole body was full of vigour, as it had not been since he could last remember. It seemed that Kuthlan could indeed keep his promise of eternal life - or at least great longevity - although rarely did he honour it.

Conan turned his gaze to the Crystal Skull, glowing with its own inner light. He could feel it almost whispering to him, telling him to turn to the east, to the rising sun, until at length he reached the eastern shore.

Conan began to walk, and then stopped for a moment to laugh out loud. To rule again as a king, to strive and conquer as he had always done – it had all been proven meaningless, indeed worse than useless for himself and for the world. But if every cloud had a silver lining he had found his. Come what may, whether he had years or days left to live at the whim of fate, at least was young again, and would face his ancient foe Set with all the fire and vigour of youth!

"The trail ends here, my lord," said the Ocelot scout, his coppery brow dripping with sweat amid the heat and humidity of the dank swamp. "The waters make it impossible to follow any further. We have reached a dead end, it seems."

"That I will not accept," replied Tlaloc, who as of old had taken command of the vanguard of his armour, while Xipe brought up the main body of their forces more than a day's march behind – full ten-thousand warriors of Xlantlantca, and Mayapan. They had marched for weeks since their victory at the second battle of the reeds, far to the north and east of their homeland as every trace of Conan's passing, however thin, from burned out campfires to muddy remnants of his heavy tread, was found by the scouts,` or extracted from the wild men who lived in those parts and had seen from afar the passing of the demigod who bore the Crystal Skull.

"We have not come this far in vain," continued Tlaloch. "The will of Kukulkan has guided us. Fan out and search this swamp, every league. Even if it takes days one of you will find some sign or trace of Conan's passing, for there is nowhere else he could have gone."

"As you command, my lord," replied the Ocelot scout, as he and his men fanned out into the swamp, soon disappearing in the gloom beneath the trees.

For some hours they were not heard from again, as Tlaloch's remaining men of the vanguard pitched camp for the night on the higher and drier ground near the edge of the swamp. As the sun began to sink low over the open savannahs to the west, staining the sky a dusky red, the sounds of myriad insects and other forms of life increased a hundredfold, almost deafening the men.

As the campfires sprang to life, the work of the camp was interrupted by a blood-curdling, high-pitched scream – unmistakably that of a man. At nod from Tlaloch, the camp guards turned away from their mundane tasks and picked-up their weapons, swiftly guarding the perimeter while awaiting their orders.

"We wait," Tlaloc said calmly. "Whatever has happened out there, I won't have my vanguard drawn in through the darkness to what could be a trap in this unknown wilderness, far from our own lands, and Xipe's men more than a day's march behind us. If our scouts do not return by morning, then at first light we strike camp and move out in search for them."

The guards reluctantly acknowledged the wisdom of this command, despite their concern for their comrades. Time passed slowly as the last embers of the dying sun burnt out, and the clouding sky blocked any light of stars or moon, plunging the men into a darkness so complete that but for the light of the campfires, they would not have been able to seen their hands held up in front of their faces.

At length, they saw flickering orange lights amid the depths of the swamp, which appeared to be torches they hoped were those of their own scouts, though they readied themselves in case they faced a night attack by a hostile tribe of savages. The lights grew nearer, and the guards along the perimeter called out their challenge, awaiting the right password in reply.

There was no reply for some moments, and all of the men thumbed the edges of their weapons nervously. Then, a hoarse voice called back, and they relaxed their guard slightly and waited to see who returned.

One of the scouts emerged into their sight, followed at length by several of his fellows, all panting with exhaustion, their coppery skin streaked with sweat and blood. Their weapons were also blooded, showing every evidence of a grim struggle. Their fellows were not with them, and there seemed little doubt as to their fate.

"Savages, or wild beasts?" asked Tlaloc of one of the scouts – not the Ocelot warrior who had been their leader, and who was nowhere to be seen.

"Beasts, or monsters of some kind," panted the exhausted men. "The swamp is thick with them. Three of our men were pulled down at once by some unknown creature under the surface of the waters, and in the tumult two more were dragged off by beasts of who knows what kind – it was so dark, we could not see, but only hear their snarls and the strangled cry of one of our number. We struck out blindly in the dark, with only our torches to try and see anything in the merciless gloom, but whatever we struck no body of the beast remained behind for our trophy. I deem we survived only because whatever took our fellows had their fill without devouring us."

"That may well be," acknowledged Tlaloch grimly. "It seems your quest then was a costly one indeed."

"Costly, but not in vain," replied another of the scouts, his dark face flashing the hint of a smile. "I had not time to inform my fellows before we were ambushed, but I found this by chance in the gloom, stuck to the bark of a tree."

He held up a single mud-stained feather, a paltry prize it seemed compared to the price paid by his comrades for their evening search. But the men gasped aloud and Tlaloch reached out his hand for it eagerly – for it was the brilliant green feather of a Quetzal, which by the laws of Mayapan could only be worn by the Feathered Serpent himself! When he had last seen Conan, just before his fateful departure from the Xlantlantca with Hutizil several months before, Tlaloch had noted the several green feathers braided into Conan's long, greying hair. It was indisputable proof that Conan had passed this way, and most likely recently judging by its fair condition.

"Mayhap he was taken by one of the beasts?" asked another of the scouts.

"Do you believe Kukulkan would deny us our own vengeance against him?" asked Tlaloch scornfully. "And besides, he is armed with the Crystal Skull. Nothing but our own army with the power of our god behind us can put a stop to his evil! But now our path is clear. All of you must be ready to strike camp by first light, and we will follow the path marked by the scouts. Who knows, perhaps the day of reckoning will come before the sun sets again tomorrow!"

That night passed with little sleep on the part of the men, for all were restless and eager to find themselves close to their quarry. At dawn, Tlaloc ordered a dozen of the men to remain behind and make contact with Xipe's men, who were expected to arrive by that evening, or the morning after at the earliest, and deliver the report of their progress to Xipe personally. The rest, some four-score or so, accompanied Tlaloch into the swamp, following the trail marked by the scouts the previous day into its dark heart.

Some hours passed as they party moved slowly through the murky water and decaying trees, constantly on edge for the beasts that had attacked their party the previous night – although none presented themselves for the time being. Then, the scout who had found the Quetzal feather lead Tlaloch to the place, which could now be seen clearly for the first time.

Both Tlaloch and the scout were surprised to realize that the tree stood by a massive cyclopean stone, others of which were scattered about the swamp in vaguely circular pattern. All of the men had their guard up now, for it was obvious that such a vast work of stone, amid a land devoid of stones and rock, was not likely that of the hand of man, or at least no race of men known to them.

At Tlaloch's command, the scouts fanned out and searched the site, until one of them gave a cry indicating that he had found something. The others then soon converged on his location, and saw what he had found – a strange block of crystal, carved in curious patterns, from whose top a crystal-clear stream trickled ceaselessly down the sides and into the murky waters of the swamp. A pane of crystal was carved into one side of the fountain, its surface dully reflective like a mirror.

"Is there any sign of Conan's presence?" asked Tlaloc, while staring at the foutain with interest.

"None yet, my lord," replied the scout. "But it seems to me that this place, whatever it was, was likely sought out by Conan; else why would he plunged into this accursed swamp when his way would have been far easier by keeping to the higher and drier land round about? There appears nothing else for him to have sought out in this forsaken place."

"I am pleased with your find," replied Tlaloc, "but we must seek further evidence of where Conan has gone, for it is plain he could not and did not seek shelter here for long. Leave no stone unturned until you find his path!"

"I hear and obey my lord," replied the scout, and the men fanned out as Tlaloc had ordered, while he continued to stare thoughtfully at the fountain. He recalled the interrogations of the Priests of Kuthlan before their sacrifice, in which they had divulged they had dispatched Conan to seek out this very spot - which he knew to be sacred to the evil god of the deeps, although he had not so told his men lest their resolve be shaken.

Whatever it was about this spot that made it so important, Tlaloc knew not, for even the tortures of the damned had not loosened further the tongues of the priests before Tlaloc personally offered-up their hearts in sacrifice to Kukulkan. He half-wondered if they had not deliberately lead him to this spot, though for what purpose his could not imagine.

Staring at his image in the fountain's mirror, which seemed clearer now, Tlaloc noted with some concern the heaviness of his once slender and handsome face, and the lines of care that had grown on his forehead and under his eyes though he was not yet thirty summers old. A legacy of his years of drinking and whoring, he thought idly to himself. But then in any case, time laid its heavy hand on all men and Tlaloc knew there was little he could do to stay its passing.

The waters of the fountain looked cool and inviting, and Tlaloc could not resist the temptation to drink a few cooling draughts from it after some hours of slogging through the swamp amid growing head and humidity, to which he was little suited as a mountaineer who for some years now had lived in the mild, dry climate of Xlantlantaca. The water had a curious aftertaste he could not quite compare to anything he had tasted before, but it satisfied his thirst well enough and he drank of it deeply.

Tlaloc stood up from the fountain and took a few steps in the direction of the closest of his men, whose profiles he could dimly see retreating into the trees beyond the cyclopean circle that ringed the ancient site. Then he stopped, falling to the ground like a stone as he cried out in agony, his body on fire with pain as all dissolved into a white light…

"By Kukulkan himself!" cried the highest ranking of the scouts. "What has happened here?"

"It is a dark and terrible magic of this wicked place!" exclaimed another. "What else need we say?"

All of the men of Tlaloc's scouting party stood about the fountain now, staring at Tlaloc – or rather, what as left of Tlaloc. For where a hale and hearty man had stood but some minutes before, there now floated in the foetid water of the swamp the limp, desiccated form of an ancient man, his long hair and thin beard hoary and white, his nails long, his skin lined with a thousand wrinkles as if it had been held out to dry for ages under a cruel sun, and yet thin as if made of ancient parchment. Tlaloch had aged a hundred years in the span of a day!

The men had frantically raised him up from the waters when the found him but some minutes after he had uttered his hideous scream, turned seeking for signs of life, but to no avail. If Tlaloc had not died from sudden aging, then he had swiftly given up the ghost when he fell face-first into the swamp, breathing his last as his lungs filled up with its noisome waters.

"This must be the work of thrice-accursed Kuthlan!" cried the tallest man present, an Eagle warrior whose lined face bore the stamp of maturity. "That strange carving on the fountain, these great boulders that only could have been moved here from afar by a titan – this must be one of his cult sites of old!"

"The waters of this fountain are cursed, I'll warrant!" exclaimed a Jaguar warrior. "It looks nothing natural. Tall must have drunk from it, and this is the result!"

"Perhaps," shrugged the Eagle warrior. "But that this place is cursed is beyond doubt. We must take his body away, return to our campsite and prepare him for cremation with decent burial of his ashes on on dry land. General Xipe will arrive soon enough, and we will have to make our report to him along with our grim news."

"Xipe might not think it so grim," said an Ocelot warrior cynically. "There was no love lost between them."

"Hold your tongue!" barked the Eagle Warrior. "Humble though his origins may have been, Tlaloc was made a prince of Xlantlantaca and recognized as such by all. The honour of Xlantlantaca now demands his blood be avenged, and the target of our revenge is clear. This is yet another insult to our city at the hands of the barbarian traitor from beyond the Eastern Sea!"

"Speaking of which" said a younger scout, a mountaineer of southern Mayapan who was not initiated into any of the totemic cults of the Xlantlantacans, "just before I heard Tlaloc's fateful cry, I found a strap of a leathern sandal snagged in a tree root not far to the southeast. Conan seems to have left this place and struck off in that direction." He held up the strap in token of the truth of his claim, and all the men could see that is was of the common workmanship of Xlantlantaca, and surely could have belonged to none other than Conan himself.

"Then we have our full report for Xipe, and shall await his orders on his arrival," said the Eagle warrior. "Take up Tlaloc's body and let us leave this foul place, never to return."

"And what of this vile fountain?" asked a Jaguar warrior. "Shall we not smash it as an affront to Kukulkan and his worshippers?"

"We have had enough ill-luck for one day without incurring more," replied the Eagle warrior, shaking his head. "Who knows what curse might strike us down too, if we take such rash action? We will leave it for Xipe to decide."

"What a great tragedy this is!" cried Xipe, throwing up his hands in a ritual gesture of shock, though his face by contrast remained hard and unmoved at the report of Tlaloc's strange passing. "Though it leaves in no doubt as to the great evil of our enemies."

"What shall we do, my lord?" asked one of the Ocelot scouts who had been part of Tlaloc's party. He now stood before Xipe's plain canvas tent, one of hundreds pitched in the savannahs just west of the swamp as the sun began to sink low in the west. Tlaloc's withered body lay at Xipe's sandaled feet, a sad remnant of a man who until but a few hours before had been one of the most powerful in all Mayapan.

"Tlaloc must be cremated and his ashes interred here and now, with such honours as we can muster in this howling wilderness," replied Xipe, now wiping his hand across his brow in a ritual gesture of mourning. "There is nothing else we can do for him; we are too far from Xlantlantaca to inter him properly there."

"And what of Conan?" asked the scout. "As best we can tell from such signs and clues we see in the swamp, he continued on to the south and east of here. The water becomes brackish in that direction; it may be we are not far from the shores of the Eastern Sea, though these lands are not charted and we can only guess at where the shore may be."

"At least you have some idea where Conan has gone," replied Xipe in a sterner tone. "I want more scouts to fan out south and east, skirting the edges of the swamp rather than plunging back into it. If they can pick up a clear trail on dry land, they are to report to me at once. If we are near the shore, that is to our advantage, for Conan cannot proceed beyond it and we may be able to hem him in on three sides with the waters at his back, and no way open for him to escape. Then, with the aid of Kukulkan against Conan's dark sorcery, we will have our revenge!"

"As you command my lord," replied the scout, rushing off to carry out Xipe's orders. Meanwhile, Xipe smiled grimly. With his rival Tlaloch happily dispatched by a turn of fate, he had only to defeat Conan – that, he admitted, might be more difficult than he would hope. But, to one who sought the throne, there was no risk that was not worth taking. If he could attain the victory, then only Conan's half-breed young daughter and her coterie of servants stood between him and ultimate power over Mayapan! Xipe had no doubt to whom Kukulkan would show his favour – although, he surmised, having ten-thousand loyal men at his command and Conan's severed head hanging from his belt would certainly help seal the bargain in his favour.

Dawn sent its first pale tendrils over the eastern horizon, as in the twilight Conan pulled his sodden feet out of the last dregs of the swamp, and stepped into a field of dry sand, speckled here and there with tough bushes and wiry grasses. Though he could still not see clearly, his rejuvenated ears and nose worked well enough – he could smell the tang of salt in the air, and hear from afar the sound of waves crashing on a lonely shore.

The Eastern Sea! And verily, the Western Ocean of the Hyborians, as it had been known to Conan for most of his long life. Not for nigh on a dozen years had Conan seen it, since he first was cast upon the black sand, jungle-fringed shore well over a thousand miles to the south of his current whereabouts, on that fateful day when his ship had foundered on the reef in a raging storm.

Conan strode ahead purposefully, as the Crystal Skull began to glow very strongly amid the dawn twilight. Clearly something of significance would happen at the shore, Conan sensed, although he knew not what. Had the Skull led him to a passing Hyborian ship, blow far off course but ready to take him as passenger – whether willingly or no – and conduct him back to his own proper homelands?

At length, Conan arrived in sight of the shore, just as the newborn sun rose over the horizon, some distance below the shore – the shore then was oriented to the east and west in these parts, he surmised, and he was facing south. The whole of the sea southwest towards the heartland of Mayapan, and southeast to the scattered isles of Antillia, must then have formed a giant basin, a fact unknown to him until this time. Conan had learned since his earliest youth in the hinterlands of Cimmeria always to build a mental map of his surroundings wherever he went, and commit it to memory, in case the knowledge someday proved useful.

Still, as Conan strode to the edge of the shore in the growing light of day, and stared at the choppy waters of the Eastern Sea grabbing and carrying away the countless grains of yellow sand at his feet - waves so different from the long, rolling breakers of the Western Sea from whose reaches he had retrieved the Crystal Skull from its mysterious island - Conan knit his dark brows in puzzlement. As far as his rejuvenated eyes could see, there was no ship, merely the azure waters stretching endlessly away from the flat, sandy coastline towards the horizon. For what purpose then had the Skull led him hither?

Just then, Conan began to feel the slightest tremor to the ground, followed by another and another. Nothing that a civilized man would ever have noticed, but to Conan its regular rhythm was both familiar and unmistakable – for nothing could have made it other than the sandaled feet of an army on the march, thousands strong and not far distant. Conan gazed about, and soon saw the hint of a cloud of dust emerging from the gloom to the west, where the scarlet rays of the sun had not yet reached fully at this early hour. Conan's youthful face cracked into a grim smile, though there was no merriment to his volcanic blue eyes.

"So Tlaloc," asked Conan out loud to no one in particular, "or is it Xipe, or both? Have you finally gotten off your lazy arses to provide whatever assistance you can to your long-vanished king, even at this late hour?"

But somehow Conan's heart warned him that it was not so, and his smile turned into a frown. He turned to look directly at the Crystal Skull, mute as ever on its staff, but glowing more brightly than ever now, and betraying his position to the keen-eyed from afar. As he did at times, once again Conan felt suspicion towards the Skull. The bauble was both powerful and beyond his control, not to mention the source of great grief to him, so how could he ever bring himself to trust its strange and unpredictable actions?

Conan then let out a shrug, and decided to stand his ground and let fate bring what it would this day. He had not long to wait, for soon the rising light of the sun illuminated a vast army, which he reckoned a good ten-thousand strong, marching directly towards his position.

Within the space of perhaps a half-turn of the glass, Conan found himself surrounded in a broad arc some five-hundred feet in all directions from where he stood, as the army surround him on three sides, with the sea towards his back, him and then came to a sudden halt. The warriors on the front line, more of Xlantlantaca than of southern Mayapan, stared at him grimly and without word, their spears and war-clubs held at the ready.

Conan frowned, as this was not the customary way for an army to greet its king. Clearly some mischief was afoot, though he knew not its cause nor who was behind it. However, he did not have long to find out.

"At last we see our great king!" cried Xipe, as he stepped forth from the front lines, dressed in the resplendent costume of a general of the Eagle warriors and accompanied by his standard-bearer, his deep voice loud and clear from such a distance even above the crashing of the waves against the shore.

"How now, Xipe?" asked Conan, who did not advance towards his general, but boomed out his own reply across the sands of the shore – he realized Xipe was still too far away in the half-light of dawn to note how the years had fallen from Conan's face and frame, since last they had met. "Is this any way to greet your king? It must be some urgent cause indeed to send you all this way, following hot on my heels, when I gave no such order before I departed!"

"Indeed you did not!" replied Xipe mockingly. "But then what should we expect from you? A king who idly stands by while his own queen is murdered - nay, who led her from the safety of her palace to be murdered in a foul den - all in service to our great enemy Kuthlan, is not likely to give any orders to the benefit of Xlantlantaca! Is that not so, barbarian outlander?"

"Insolent dog!" snarled Conan in reply. "How dare you speak to me in this way? I will have your heart and your guts on a plate for this!"

"The armies of Xlantlantaca do not answer to foreign traitors, you wretched cur!" replied Xipe haughtily. "Tlaloc uncovered the truth of your foul murder of his sister, or at least of your playing a part in it, at the hands of the Priests of Kuthlan! Do not waste the brief time that remains to you denying the plain truth of the matter!"

"I have killed men for lesser insults," bellowed Conan fiercely, "and will soon take great pleasure in killing you, you dishonourable gutter-dropped son of a whore! And where is Tlaloc? I would have his head along with yours, for slandering me so! It was his own sister who was a traitor to your cause, and a witch to boot, though he was too much the fool to know!"

"More of your lies," replied Xipe, his sneer of disdain audible in his voice. "Though as for Tlaloc, alas he is dead, struck down by whatever dark sorcery of Kuthlan led you to this forsaken place on the edge of the world. But he and his sister, and all the people of Xlantlantaca and Mayapan, will be avenged against you soon enough!"

"And how do you propose to accomplish this miracle?" asked Conan, unmoved by the news of the passing of Tlaloc, for whom he no longer gave any more care than he did to anyone else in Mayapan. "Have you forgotten I carry the Crystal Skull, even though it stands before you,glowing with the inner fires of its unfathomable power? Who among you dares stand against me!"

"Who among you stands for our god Kukulkan, against traitors and enemies to our cause?" asked Xipe to his men in riposte.

"US! US! US!" chanted the men on the beach, their cries ten-thousand strong and deafening even from scores of paces away.

"Kukulkan shall not fail us in the hour of our need!" cried Xipe, his voice harsh and stern now. "Forward to victory! Wealth and glory untold await the first man to seize the Crystal Skull from Conan's cold dead hands!"

Screeching out the chilling, ululating war cry of the men of Xlantlantaca, which cannot be rendered into words for one not present to hear its cruelty and ferocious hunger for blood and death, the warriors of Xlantlantaca rushed forward, Xipe in their vanguard, as Conan prepared himself for battle.

"Ten-thousand to one," he muttered to himself grimly. "T'would be a shame to regain my long lost youth, only to lose my life but a few days later! I hope you have something up your sleeve," he continued, staring at the Crystal Skull, which remained as mute as ever, though it seemed for a moment its inner glowing light flickered brightly in reply.

It took but moments for the blood-mad crowd of warriors to approach within a score of paces to Conan himself – he noted with a mix of professional disappointment and personal relief that they advanced in no good order of an army of the Hyborian lands, as he had taught them, but as a wild and disorganized mob, each prepared only for their own individual combat as had been their custom since time immemorial. In this as it other ways, it seemed, Conan's rule had proved little more than a passing and ephemeral influence on this ancient and mysterious land at the western rim of the world.

With only seconds to spare before his enemies were upon him, Conan lifted up the staff in a two-headed grip above his head, ready to take out as many of his foes as possible before he was downed by their sheer numbers with his back to the sea. Then suddenly, he was blinded by a brilliant light shining forth from the Crystal Skull, which froze him in his tracks, incapable of movement.

There was no sound for a moment, as all faded to white. But then after what seemed only a few seconds had passed, the light faded and Conan saw the scene of devastation before him!

For an even swath at least ten-score paces deep, all his foes had fallen, their flesh scorched in some cases to the bone as if the light had burned them more swiftly than the hottest fire, even though to Conan it had felt cool without any trace of heat. The stench of burned flesh filled Conan's nostrils, and the cries of the wounded and dying grated on his ears.

One of the ruined figures nearest to him gave out a terrible cry, and reached towards him with a claw-like hand, dripping with melted flesh, as its burned features twisted with rage and pain. From the remnants of its clothing, Conan recognized it as Xipe – or at least, what was left of him.

"It seems your god has left you in the lurch," replied Conan with a shrug. "Demon he may be, but I have received a better bargain from Kuthlan then you have from Kukulkan!" And with that, Conan swung his staff with a motion faster than the eye could see, dashing Xipe's brains into the air and bringing his suffering to an end.

Conan then looked up, and realized that his peril was not yet ended. The Crystal Skull had slain perhaps one men in twenty of Xipe's vast army – the rest had come to a sudden halt where the Skull's explosive scouring of cruel light had come to an end, and while they cried out with dismay they were unharmed in body. Conan guessed it would only be a matter of time before their desire for revenge of their comrades overcame their shock and fear – and, he noted with some concern, the Crystal Skull was no longer glowing, but was again clear and in its dormant state. Had it already exhausted its powers so readily? Be that as it may, Conan still faced a vast army to his front, and the sea at his back, with no avenue of escape other than to stride into the waves and swim for his life if it came to that. But he could easily be tracked from the shore if he swam alongside it, and to swim away from it hardly seemed practical with endless leagues of ocean beyond.

The sound of the waves hitting the shore grew louder of a sudden, and Conan watched with surprise as a cry of alarm and then of horror rose up from amongst his foes, as they first slowly backed away, and then more quickly turned about and ran, save for a handful of their bravest few!

The surf surged about Conan's sandled feet, still cool at this early hour of the morning, and with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach Conan turned about to see what sight was terrifying enough to have driven off an army of hardened warriors who had stood their ground even when the Crystal Skull had annihilated the vanguard of their army in a matter of seconds.

Facing south and directly out to sea, Conan's jaw dropped as he saw a huge and growing dome of water, some ten-score paces from the shore, the sea bubbling and frothing about its fluid edges. Through the foam he saw half a dozen or more giant sea-serpents, their flesh mottled in dull red and sickly green, their oar-shaped heads pulsating strangely, lashing and searching about chaotically, as if searching for something – or someone!

Backing away from the shore, Conan gripped his staff firmly and pondered his next move. He was not surprised that the men of Xlantlantaca and Mayapan had turned and fled so quickly, but for the bravest few – the fear of the sea was bred into them from birth, as the realm of their demonic foe Kuthlan. But Conan was not sure what he should do – had he not been promised that if he reached the shore of the Eastern Sea, he would find passage to Hyboria? Turning back inland, away from these serpentine beasts, would seem the obvious course, but one which would bring him no closer to his goal of returning to the shores of Hyboria as he had been counseled to do in what little time remained to him before his appointed hour with Kukulkan.

Then the dome of water exploded into vapour and disappeared, and it was soon apparent to Conan that his eyes had deceived him. For rising up from beneath it was a vast, bulbous, quaking mass of rubbery flesh, to which the sea-serpents were attached!

"Crom and Mitra! It is the Kraken itself!" swore Conan aloud, his feet rooted the ground at this unimaginable sight!

He had heard legends of these titans of the deep, like octopi or squid swollen to enormous size, from the sea-roving Vanir of the north - including from his late and lamented friend Sigurd of Vanaheim, who had accompanied him on his quest towards Mayapan only to meet a sad fate by Conan's own hand. Sigurd had said such beasts were feared by all the Vanir who dwelt near the coast and sailed over the seas, for not only could they devour a ship with ease, they had even been known to attack and destroy villages built too near to the coast, reaching inland with their long arms to seize what beasts and men they could and carry them to their watery larder, or even eat them whole on the spot!

Still, Conan had never seen such a beast himself in all his travels, nor met anyone including Sigurd who claimed to have seen one with their own eyes. He had heard enough tall tales from sailors to doubt this one as just another legend dreamt up by men deep in their cups to pass the long nights of winter in the North.

But Conan could not doubt the evidence of his own senses – the immense beast that quavered and pulsated in the shallows and pulled its way toward the shore with its long, sucker-covered arms was nothing less than the Kraken, as real as daylight! The terrified screams of the last few warriors of Xlantlantaca who had stood their ground, but who now joined their comrades in frenzied flight, were drowned out by the roar issuing from the wicked yellow beak of this monster, snapping spasmodically. Two vast yellow eyes, slanted horizontally with black pupils like those of a goat, hove into view while the beast pulled its enormous bulk, fully two-hundred feet in breadth including its writhing arms, further into the shallows and crawled towards the shore.

Conan's instincts broke the hold of his fear and awe as, without thinking, he turned about and ran from the shore and back across the dunes towards the swamp, as fast as his long and now youthful legs could carry him. He would worry later about how to fulfil his appointed task – all this filled his mind now was the primitive instinct of a prey animal to flee from a larger predator.

A whip-like lashing sound cracked through the air, and Conan's nostrils filled with a foul stench, as of sulphur mixed with rotten fish, as a dark shadow loomed over Conan. He dodged frantically, but it was too late – the vast snake like arm of the Kraken smashed the ground in front of Conan, dropping him flat on his back from the impact and then swiftly closed about him in its gelatinous, suckered grip, lifting him far above the beach and back towards the sea, and the waiting maw of the Kraken itself.

Conan's eyes darted frantically to the Crystal Skull, which remained tightly in his grasp, affixed to his staff, even though his arms were enveloped helplessly in the Kraken's inexorable grasp. The Skull remained clear and dormant as it had since it slew the vanguard of Xipe's army. Why had it moved to spare his life then, only to allow him to meet an even worse fate now?

"A strange end for a Cimmerian mountaineer!" Conan thought to himself, as he steeled himself for a crushing and painful death between the two snapping halves of the Kraken's yellowed beak while its two vast saucer-like eyes stared back at him, almost glowing it seemed with a hint of intelligence that was unnatural in any beast. The Kraken released its grip on Conan, and he dropped like a stone through the air, closing his eyes during his last few moments of life so as not to witness his inexorable end.

But then, to his shock, another snaking arm caught Conan in mid-air, holding him more loosely this time, and dropped him on its soft, quaking bulk of its body! Eyes wide open, Conan then dropped to all fours, desperate to hold his grip on the sinking, slippery surface of the beast as it writhed and thrashed along the shore, rather than drop from such a great height to his certain death.

Conan realized with alarm that the beast was now pulling itself away from shore, farther out to sea. Did it mean then to carry him to its watery lair, rather than devour him at once?

The Kraken pulled itself away from the shallows and into the deeps, swiftly sinking back beneath the surface of the water. Conan realized that he would not need to leap from its back in order to escape, as soon it would be level with the surface and he could easily swim off its back and back towards the flat, sandy shore – although he had no doubt it could easily recapture him in the water with a swift dart of its grasping arms.

But then its sudden descent ceased, and the Kraken began swimming with amazing speed for its bulk, taking a course due east judging by the position of the rising sun. A portion of the beast's back perhaps a score of feet in breadth remained a few feet above the waves, and Conan found that by remaining crouching carefully on its back he was in a steady position, at little risk of sliding off into the sea. The Crystal Skull and its staff remained firmly in his two handed-grip, though he now held it before his feet to maintain his balance.

Conan realized to his amazement that in fact a transport had awaited him at the shore to carry him east to Hyboria – though certainly not of a sort he had expected! Somehow Kuthlan as lord of the deeps had commanded this beast to serve his bidding, and even now it carried him, more swiftly and tirelessly than any ship, away from the fast receding shores of Mayapan, bearing east across the leagues of the Eastern Sea, which was to say the Western Ocean, to the Hyborian shore. There Conan could face his final confrontation with Kukulkan as Kuthlan had decreed.

As the watery leagues were eaten up by the swift-moving Kraken, and the sun rose higher in the sky, Conan realized he might never know the fate of Mayapan, and his own daughter Huitzilipochtli. Would she come to rule the land in his place, now that her father was gone, her mother and uncle dead, and the leading general of the realm dead also? Would she remain in the thrall of Kukulkan, or would she forge a path of her own making, inspired by her father's example?

But then Conan hardened his heart against her again, for as the offspring of a witch a thousand generations of his Cimmerian heritage decreed he spare no further thought for her fate. In any event, he sensed in his bones that whatever his destiny, he would not set foot in the lands of Mayapan again.

Thus Conan passed out of the history of Mayapan, while Mayapan itself passed out of the history of the Hyborian lands, unknown and unguessed of until again until an age of the world had passed. The legend of the Feathered Serpent, the mysterious white-skinned, bearded stranger who appeared in the lands of Mayapan with a promise of hope, only to leave ruin in his wake, would remain in those strange lands of the setting sun for eons to come. In time it would give rise to a legend that he would return, seeking vengeance for his betrayal by the people whom he had served. But the truth of the matter would pass into legend, and in time be forgotten utterly.

Conan, of course, was never to know any of this destiny of legend. His mind was fixed entirely on his own appointment with destiny, and his final confrontation on the shores of Hyboria with his ancient nemesis, the serpent-god Set the Destroyer.