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Conan the Victorious
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By Robert Jordan


Prologue

The Vendhyan night was preternaturally still, the air weighty and
oppressive. No slightest breeze stirred, leaving the capital city of
Ayodhya to swelter. The moon hung heavily in the sky like a monstrous
yellow pustule, and most of the few who ventured out to see it
shuddered and wished for even a single cloud to hide its sickly
malevolence. There were whispers in the city that such a night, such a
moon, were omens of plague, or of war, but certainly of death.

The man who called himself Naipal gave no heed to the whispers.
Watching from the highest balcony of a vast palace of alabaster spires
and golden domes, his by royal gift, he knew the moon was no omen of
any sort. It was the stars that gave the night its promise, the passing
of configurations that had blocked his way for months. He laid long,
supple fingers on the long, narrow golden coffer held beneath his arm.
Tonight, he thought, there would be one moment of transcendent danger,
a moment when all his plans could crumble to dust. Yet there was no
gain without risk, and the greater the gain, the greater the danger.

Naipal was not his true name, for in a land noted for its intrigues,
those who followed his path were secretive beyond the ordinary. He was
tall for a Vendhyan, and they were accounted a tall people among the
nations of the East. That height gave him a presence that he
deliberately diminished by wearing robes of somber hue, such as the
dark gray he now wore, rather than the rainbow silks and satins
affected by men of fashion. Also the shade of charcoal was his modestly
small turban, with neither gem nor plume to set it off. His face was
darkly handsome, seeming calm beyond the ability of any disaster to
shatter, with heavy-lidded black eyes that spoke of wisdom to men and
of passion to women.

Seldom did he allow himself to be seen, however, for in mystery there
was power, though many knew that one called Naipal was court wizard to
King Bhandarkar of Vendhya. This Naipal, it was said in Ayodhya, was a
wise man, not only for his good and faithful service to the King since
the strange disappearance of the former court wizard, but also for his
modest lack of ambition. In a place where every man and woman brimmed
with ambition and plotting, the lack was considered praiseworthy, if
peculiar. But then, his sort did peculiar things. It was known, for
instance, that he gave great sums to the poor, to the children of the
streets. This was a source of some amusement to the nobles of the
court, for they thought he did it to assume a guise of kindness. In
truth he had thought long before giving the first coin. He had come
from those streets and remembered well wretched nights crouched in an
alley, too hungry to sleep. The truth would have showed a weakness;
therefore he fostered the cynical rumors of his motives, for he allowed
himself no weakness.

With a last look at the sky, Naipal left the balcony, firmly clutching
the narrow coffer. Golden lamps, cunningly wrought in the shapes of
birds and flowers, lit the high-ceilinged corridors of his palace.
Exquisite porcelains and fragile crystal vases stood on tables of
polished ebony and carven ivory. The carpets layered thickly beneath
his feet in a welter of color were beyond price, and any one of the
delicately-woven tapestries on the alabaster walls could have been
exchanged for the daughter of a king. In public, Naipal made every
effort to efface himself; in private, he reveled in all the pleasures
of the senses. This night, however, after waiting so long, his eye did
not touch any of the ornaments of his palace nor did he call for wine,
nor musicians, nor women.

Down he went, into the depths of his palace and beyond, to chambers
with walls that glowed with a faint pearlescence as though glazed by
the hand of a master, chambers hewn from the bowels of the earth by his
powers. Few of his servants were allowed to enter those deep-buried
rooms and passages, and those few could not speak of what they did or
saw for the simple lack of a tongue. The world at large did not know of
those chambers, for those servants who did not descend into them, and
so were allowed to keep their tongues, fearfully and wisely averted
their eyes and would not so much as whisper of them on their sleeping
pallets.

A downward-sloping corridor opened into a great square chamber, thirty
paces on a side, with softly-gleaming canescent walls that were all of
one piece, without join. Above, a pointed dome rose twenty times the
height of a tall man. Centered beneath that dome was an arcane pattern
in silver, buried in the near translucence of the floor and
encompassing the greater part of the room. That silver graving gave off
its own unholy radiance of frosty paleness. At nine precisely chosen
spots on the perimeter of that figure were tripods of delicately worked
gold, no higher than Naipal's knee and placed so that each leg seemed
to continue a portion of the pattern. The air seemed sharp with dire
forces, and the memories of foulness done.

Incongruously, the sixth part of the length of one wall was taken by a
large grille of iron bars, with a locked door, also of iron, set in it.
Near the strange latticework a table of polished rosewood held the
implements and ingredients he would need this night, all arranged on
black velvet as a gem merchant might display his wares. A large flat
box of ornately carved ivory stood atop faceted crystal legs at one end
of the velvet. The place of honor on that table, though, was held by a
small, finely crafted ebony chest.

Setting the golden coffer beside a silken cushion before which stood
another golden tripod, Naipal went to the table. His hand stretched
toward the small black chest, but on sudden impulse he raised the ivory
lid instead. Carefully he brushed aside layers of blue silk, as soft as
the finest down, revealing a silvered mirror, its polished surface
showing no image at all, not even a reflection of the chamber.

The mage nodded. He had expected no different, but knew he must not
allow his certainties to stop him from proper precautions. This mirror
was not so very unlike a scrying glass, but instead of being used to
communicate or spy, it had very special properties. That silver surface
would show no images save those that threatened his designs.

Once, soon after he became wizard in the court of King Bhandarkar,
Mount Yimsha, abode of the dreaded Black Seers, had appeared in the
mirror. It had been only curiosity at his ascension, he knew. They saw
no threat in him, more fools they. In a day the image was gone, and
never since had anything been reflected there. Not so much as a
flicker. Such was the efficacy of his planning.

With a feeling of satisfaction, Naipal covered the mirror once more and
opened the ebony chest. Within was that which made his satisfaction
grow. In carven hollows in the sable wood lay ten stones, smooth ovals
of so inky a hue that the ebony seemed less black beside them. Nine
were the size of the last joint of a man's thumb, the last twice so
large. These were the khorassani. For centuries men had died seeking
them in vain, until their very existence became first part of legends,
then the stuff of stories for children. Ten years it had taken Naipal
to acquire them, a search filled with adventures and trials to make it
fit for epics had it been known.

Reverently he placed the nine smaller khorassani, one atop each of the
golden tripods that bordered the arcane figure within the floor. The
tenth, the largest, he set on the tripod before the cushion. All was in
readiness.

Naipal settled cross-legged onto the cushion and began to speak the
words of power, commanding forces unseen. "E'las eloyhim! Maraath
savinday! Khora mar! Khora mar!"

Again the words repeated, again and again unending, and the stone
before him began to glow as though with fires imprisoned in its core.
No illumination did it give, yet it seemed to burn with all light.
Abruptly, with a hiss as of white-hot metal thrust into water, narrow
streaks of fire leaped from the glowing stone, one to each of the nine
khorassani surrounding the silver pattern. As suddenly as they were
born, the blazing bars died, yet now all ten stones blazed with the
same fury. Once more the slashing hiss sounded, and the encircling
stones were linked by burning lines, while from each tripod another bar
of terrible incandescence stretched both upward and downward. Within
the confines of that fiery cage neither floor nor dome could any longer
be seen, but only darkness stretching to infinity.

Naipal fell silent, studying his handiwork, then shouted, "Masrok, I
summon you!"

A rushing came, as though all the winds of the world poured through
vast caverns.

A thunderclap smote the chamber, and within the flamebarred cage there
floated a huge eight-armed shape, twice as tall as any man and more,
with skin like polished obsidian. Its only garb was a silver necklace
from which depended three human skulls, and its body was smooth and
sexless. Two of its hands held silver swords that shone with an
unearthly light. Two more held spears with human skulls hanging below
the points for decoration, and another grasped a needle-pointed dagger.
Each weapon shared the glaucous, other-worldly glow. Large leathery
ears twitched on the hairless head, and sharply slanted ruby eyes
swiveled to Naipal.

Carefully the creature stretched to touch one silvery spear to the
fiery bounds. A million hornets buzzed in rage, and lightnings flashed
along the candent boundary, ceasing only when the spear point was
withdrawn.

"Why do you still seek escape, Masrok?" Naipal demanded. "You cannot
break our bargain so easily. Only lifeless matter can cross through
that boundary from the outside, and nothing, not even you, can pass it
from the inside. As you well know."

"If you make foolish errors, O man, there is no need for bargains." The
booming words were pronounced stiffly around teeth that seemed designed
for rending flesh, but a touch of arrogance came through. "Still, I
will keep our pact."

"Most assuredly you will, and should from gratitude if for no other
reason. Did I not free you from a prison that had held you for
centuries?"

"Freedom, O man? I leave that prison only when summoned to this place
by you, and here I am constrained to remain until commanded by you to
return once more to that same prison. For this and promises, I aid you?
I sent the demons to bear away your former master so that you could
rise to what you consider power as the court wizard. I shield the eyes
of the Black Seers of Yimsha while you attempt that which would draw
their wrath upon your head. I do these things at your command, O man,
and you dare speak to me of freedom?"

"Continue to obey me," Naipal said coldly, "and you will have your
freedom entire. Refuse . . ." He flung open the golden coffer. From it
he snatched a silvery dagger like the one the demon carried, even to
the glow, and thrust it toward the demon. "When we made our pact, I
demanded a token of you, and you gave me this with warnings as to the
danger of its merest touch to human flesh. Did you think with a
demon-weapon in my grasp I would not seek the secret of its powers? You
hold human knowledge in contempt, Masrok, though it was mortal men who
chained you in your adamantine prison. And in the knowledge of mere
humans, in the ancient writings of human wizards, I found mention of
weapons borne by demons, weapons of glowing silver, weapons that cannot
miss what they strike at and slay whatever they strike. Even demons,
Masrok. Even you!"

"Strike at me then," the demon snarled. "I marched to war beside gods,
and against gods, when the highest achievement of man was to turn over
a rock to eat the grubs beneath. Strike!"

Smiling thinly, Naipal returned the dagger to the coffer. "You are of
no use to me dead, Masrok. I simply want you aware that there is worse
I can do to you than leave you in your prison. Even for a demon,
imprisonment is to be preferred to death."

The demon's rubescent eyes fixed malevolently on the mage. "What do you
wish of me this time, O man? There are limits to what I can do unless
you remove the constraints on my journeying."

"There is no need for that." Naipal drew a deep breath; the moment of
danger was at hand. "You were imprisoned to guard the tomb of King
Orissa beneath the lost city of Maharashtra."

"You have asked before, O man, and I will not tell you the location of
tomb or city. I will not betray that if I am bound for all of time."

"I know well the limits of your aid to me. Listen to my command. You
will return to that tomb, Masrok, and bring to me one of the warriors
buried with King Orissa. Bring me one man of the army that formed his
bodyguard in death."

For a moment Naipal thought the demon would accept the command without
demur, but abruptly Masrok screamed, and as it screamed, it spun.
Faster and faster it whirled until it was an ebon blur streaked with
silver. No part of that blur touched the boundaries of its cage, but
the hornets screamed and lightnings slashed walls of fiery lace. The
chamber vibrated with the penetrating shriek and a blue-white glare
filled the air.

Calm did not desert Naipal's face, yet sweat beaded his brow. He knew
well the forces contained in that barrier and the power necessary to
make it cry out and flare as it did. It was almost to the point of
shattering; almost to the point of unleashing Masrok. Through the
thousand deaths he would die when that happened, the greatest pain
would be the failure of all his grand designs.

As abruptly as the tempest had begun, it ended. Masrok stood as truly
carved from obsidian, crimson eyes glaring at the wizard. "You ask
betrayal!"

"A small betrayal," Naipal said blandly, though it took all his
reserves to manage it. "Not the location of the tomb. Merely a single
warrior out of thousands."

"To escape two millennia of bondage is one thing, to betray what I was
set to guard is another!"

"I offer freedom, Masrok."

"Freedom," was all the demon said. Naipal nodded. "Freedom, after two
thousand years."

"Two thousand years, O man? The span of a human life is but a moment's
dreaming to me. What are years to one such as I?"

"Two thousand years," the mage repeated. For a long moment there was
silence.

"Three others guard as I do," Masrok said slowly. "My other selves, all
of us created from the same swirl of chaos in the very instant time
itself was born. Three to my one. It will take time, O man."

By the barest margin was Naipal able to mask his exhaltation. "Do it as
quickly as possible. And remember that when your service to me is done,
you will have your freedom. I await your sign that the task is done.
Now go, Masrok! I command it!"

Once more thunder smote the chamber, and the fiery cage stood empty.

With an unsteady hand, Naipal wiped the sweat from his brow, then
hastily scrubbed it on his dark robes as though denying its existence.
It was done. Another thread had been placed in a tapestry of great
complexity. There were a thousand such threads, many being placed by
men-and women-who had no idea of what they truly did or why, but when
the pattern had finally been woven ... A small smile touched his face.
When it was woven, the world would bow to Vendhya, and Vendhya,
unknowing, would bow to Naipal.


Chapter I

From a distance the city seemed Jeweled, ivory and gold beside a sea of
sapphire, justifying the name of Golden Queen of the Vilayet Sea. A
closer view showed why others gave Sultanapur's byname as "the Gilded
Bitch of the Vilayet."

The broad mole-protected harbor was crowded with the ships that gave
Sultanapur cause to call itself Queen to Aghrapur's King, but for every
roundship filled to the gunwales with silks from Khitai, for even
galley that carried the scent of cinnamon and cloves from Vendhya,
another vessel, out of Khoraf or Khawarism, reeked of stale sweat and
despair, the odiferous brand of the slaver.

Gold-leafed domes proliferated on palaces of pale marble, it was true,
and alabaster spires stretched toward the azure sky, but the streets
were cramped and crooked in the best of quarters, for Sultanapur had
grown haphazardly over centuries beyond counting. Half a score of times
in those numberless years had the city died, its gilded palaces and
temples to now-nameless gods gone to ruin. At each death, however, new
palaces and new temples to new gods had grown like mushrooms on the
rubble of the old, and like mushrooms, they crowded together where they
would, leaving only rambling ways between for streets.

The city was dusty in a land that might know rain once in a year, and
it, too, had as distinct a smell as the harbor. Without rain to wash
the streets, the stenches of years hung in the hot air, a blend of
spices and sweat, perfume and offal, a thousand aromas melded together
till the parts could no longer be told one from the other. The whole
was an ever-present miasma, as much a part of the city as any building.

Baths proliferated in Sultanapur: ornate marble structures with
mosaicked pools, served by nubile wenches in naught but their sleek
skins; wooden tubs behind taverns, where a serving girl might scrub a
back for the price of a drink. It was the constant heat, however, and
not the smell that made them a tradition. The wrinkled nose and the
perfumed pomander were signs of the newcomer to Sultanapur, for those
who dwelt there for any time no longer noticed the smell.

Newcomers there always were, for the Gilded Bitch of the Vilayet drew
certain sorts of men from all corners of the known world. In a cool,
fig-tree-shaded court or a shadowy tavern, an ebon-faced merchant from
Punt might discuss with an almond-eyed Khitan the disposition of wines
from Zingara, or a pale-cheeked Corinthian might speak with a turbaned
Vendhyan of the ivory routes to Iranistan. The streets were a polyglot
kaleidoscope of multi-hued grab in a hundred cuts from a score of
lands, and the languages and accents to be heard among the babble of
the marketplaces were too numerous for counting. In some instances the
goods were honestly purchased. In others the purchase had been from the
pirates who plagued the sea lanes, or coin had been passed to raiders
of caravans or to smugglers on a dark coast. However obtained, on no
more than half of what passed through Sultanapur was the King's custom
paid. Sultanapur was a queen that took pride in her infidelity to her
king.

For all that he was head and shoulders taller than most of those he
passed, the muscular young man drew no special notice for his size as
he made his way through streets filled with high-wheeled, ox-drawn
wains squeaking on ungreased axles toward the docks. His tunic of white
linen was tight across the breadth of his shoulders, and a broadsword
swung at his side in a worn leather scabbard, but neither sword nor
breadth of shoulders was enough to pick him out in Sultanapur. Big men,
men who carried swords, were always sure of hire in a city where there
was never a lack of goods or lives to guard.

Beneath a thick mane of black hair, held back from his face by a
leather cord, were eyes as blue as the Vilayet and as hard as agates.
Those eyes did cause stares from the few who noticed them. Some made a
sign to ward off the evil eye as he passed, but those who did so did it
surreptitiously. It was all very well to avoid the curse of those
strange eyes, but to anger their possessor was another matter entirely
when the leather wrappings of his sword-hilt were worn smooth with use
and his bearing and face showed him little loath to add to that wear.

Aware of those who stared and made the sign of the horns, the youth
ignored them. Two months in Sultanapur had made him used to such.
Sometimes he wondered how those men would take it if they found
themselves in his native mountains of Cimmeria, where eyes of any shade
but blue or gray were as rare as his own were in this southern land of
Turan. As often since coming to this place where the blue Vilayet
mocked with its wetness the dry air, he thought longingly of the
windswept, snowy crags of his homeland. Longingly, but briefly. Before
coming to Turan he had been a thief, but he found that the gold that
came from thievery had a way of trickling through his fingers as fast
as he got it. He meant to return to Cimmeria-someday-but with gold
enough to scatter like drops of water. And in Sultanapur he had found
an old friend and a new trade.

At a stone-walled tavern with a crescent moon roughly daubed in yellow
on its front, the Cimmerian went in, cutting off much of the noise of
the street as he pulled the heavy door shut behind him. The Golden
Crescent was cool inside, for its thick walls kept out the heat of the
sun as well as the clatter. Tables were scattered across the stone
floor so that talk at one could not easily be heard at another, and the
interior was lighted poorly apurpose, for here whom a man talked to or
what he said was considered no one's business but his own. The patrons
were mainly Turanians, though they seemed a mixed lot. Their garments
ranged from threadbare once-White cotton to costly velvets and silks in
gaudy shades of scarlet and yellow. Not even the most ragged of them
lacked coin, though, as evidenced by the number of doxies seated on
men's knees or displaying their wares among the tables in narrow strips
of brightly colored silk.

Some of the men nodded to the Cimmerian, or spoke. He knew them by
name-Junio and Valash and Emilius-for they followed the same trade as
he, but he did no more than acknowledge their greeting for he had no
interest in them this day. He peered into the dimness, searching for
one woman in particular. He saw her at the same moment she saw him.

"Conan!" she squealed, and he found his arms full of satiny olive
flesh. A length of red silk two fingers in width encircled her rounded
breasts, and another twice as wide was tucked through a narrow girdle
of gilded brass set low on sweetly curving hips. Black hair cascaded
down her back to all but bare buttocks, and her eyes shone darkly. "I
hoped you would come to see me. I have missed you sorely."

"Missed me?" he laughed. "It has been but four days, Tasha. But to mend
your loneliness . . ." He freed a hand to delve into the leather purse
at his belt and held up a blue topaz on a fine golden chain. For the
next few minutes he was busy being kissed, fastening the chain about
her neck, then being kissed again. And being kissed by Tasha, he
thought, was more definite than a night in some women's arms. Lifting
the clear azure stone from its nest between her breasts, she admired it
again, then gazed up at him through long lashes. "You must have had
good luck with your fishing," she smiled.

Conan grinned. "We fishermen must work very hard for our coin, casting
nets out, hauling them in. Luckily, the price of fish is very high
right now." To gales of laughter from men close enough to hear, he led
Tasha to an empty table.

All of the men who frequented the Golden Crescent called themselves
fishermen, and it was even possible that some few actually were, upon
occasion. For the vast majority, however, their "catches" were landed
at night on deserted stretches of the coast where none of King Yildiz's
excisemen were about to see whether it was fish or bales of silk and
casks of wine that were off-loaded. It was said that if all of the
so-called fishermen in Sultanapur actually brought fish to market, the
city would be buried to the tops of the tallest tower, and the Vilayet
would be stripped of its finny denizens.

At a table near the back of the room, Conan dropped to a bench and
pulled Tasha on to his lap. A sloe-eyed serving girl appeared at his
elbow, wearing little more than the doxies, though in cotton rather
than silk. She was as available as the other women, for those who could
not or would not pay the trulls' prices, and the smile she beamed at
the broad-shouldered Cimmerian said she would take Tasha's place in an
instant.

"Wine," he said and watched the rhythmic sway of her almost-covered
hips as she left.

"You did come to see me, did you not?" Tasha asked acidly. "Or is that
why you did not come yesterday? You said you would return yesterday.
Were you off comforting some thick-ankled serving wench?"

"I did not think her ankles were thick," Conan said blandly. His hand
barely caught Tasha's wrist before her slap reached his face. She
squirmed on his lap as though to rise, and he tightened his arm around
her waist. "Who is sitting on my knee?" he asked. "That should tell you
whom I want."

"Perhaps," she pouted, but at least she had stopped trying to get up.
He released her arm carefully. He had been made aware of her temper
early on. She was quite capable of trying to rake his eyes out with her
nails. But the passion that went into her rages she put into other
things as well, and so he continued to seek her out.

The serving girl returned with a clay pitcher of wine and two battered
metal cups, taking away the coins he gave her. This time Tasha watched
her depart, with a glare that boded ill. It had been Conan's experience
that women, whatever they said, preferred men who were not easily
bullied, but now he thought a little oiling of the waters might be in
order.

"Now look you," he said. "We did not return to Sultanapur until this
very morning, for the wind turned against us. From the boat to here I
took only a few hours to find that bauble for you. If need be, I will
fetch Hordo to vouch for it."

"He would lie for you." She took the cup he filled for her, but instead
of drinking she bit her lower lip, then said, "He came looking for you.
Hordo, I mean. I forgot, before. He wants to see you right away.
Something about a load of 'fish.' "

Conan hid a smile. It was a transparent attempt to make him leave on a
fool's errand. On leaving their vessel, the one-eyed smuggler had
spoken of his intentions to seek out a certain merchant's wife whose
husband was in Akif. The Cimmerian saw no reason to share that
knowledge, however.

"Hordo can wait."

"But-"

"You, Tasha, I prize above any silk or gems. I will stay here. With
you."

She gave him a sidelong glance with bright eyes. "You hold me so dear?"
Lithely she snuggled closer to him and bent to murmur into his ear
between teasing nips with small white teeth. "I like your present very
much, Conan."

The sounds of the street intruded momentarily, indicating the entrance
of another patron. With a gasp, Tasha crouched as though trying to use
him as a shield. Even for the Golden Crescent, he realized suddenly, it
had become too quiet. The constant low murmur of conversation was gone.
The Cimmerian looked at the door. In the dimness he could barely make
out the shape of a man, tall for a Turanian. One thing was plain,
however, even in the shadows by the door. The man wore the tall pointed
helmet of the City Guard.

The intruder walked slowly into the silent tavern, head swiveling as if
searching for someone, the fingers of one hand tapping on the hilt of
the curved sword at his hip. None of the men at the scattered tables
met his eyes, but he did not appear interested in any of them. He was
an officer, Conan could now see, a narrow-faced man, tall for a
Turanian, with a thin mustache and a small beard waxed to a point.

The officer's fingers stopped tapping as his gaze lit on Conan's table,
then began again as he drew closer. "Ah, Tasha," he said smoothly, "did
you forget I said I would come to you today?"

Tasha kept her eyes down and answered in a near whisper, "Forgive me,
Captain Murad. You see that I have a patron. I cannot ... I ...
please."

"Find another woman," Conan growled.

The captain's face froze, but he did not take his eyes from Tasha. "I
did not speak to you ... fisherman. Tasha, I do not want to hurt you
again, but you must learn to obey."

Conan sneered. "Only a fool needs fear in his dealings with women. If
you prefer cringing curs, find yourself a dog to beat."

The guardsman's face paled beneath its swarthiness. Abruptly he seized
Tasha's arm, jerking her from the Cimmerian's lap. "Leave my sight,
scum, before I-"

The threat cut off as Conan leaped to his feet with a snarl. The
narrow-faced man's eyes widened in surprise, as though he had expected
the girl to be given up without a fight, and his hand darted for his
sword hilt, but Conan moved faster. Not toward his own blade, however.
Killing guardsmen was considered bad business for smugglers unless it
was absolutely necessary, and in truth usually even then. Soldiers who
palmed a coin and looked the other way could become tigers in defense
of the King's laws when one of their own was slain. The Cimmerian's
fist smashed into the other's chin before a fingerwidth of steel was
bared. The officer seemed to attempt a tumbler's back flip and fell
against a table, toppling it as he dropped to the floor. His helmet
spun across the floor, but the Turanian lay where he had fallen like a
sack of rags.

The tavernkeeper, a plump Kothian with small gold rings in the lobe of
each ear, bent to peer at the officer. He scrubbed his fat hands
nervously on his wine-stained apron as he straightened. "You've ruined
my custom for a tenday, northlander. If I'm lucky. Mitra, man! You've
killed the perfumed buffoon! His neck's snapped."

Before anyone else could speak or move the door to the street slammed
open, and two more guardsmen strode through. They marched into the
common room sneering as though it were a barracks square filled with
peasant conscripts. The unnatural stillness of the tavern was disturbed
by tiny shiftings and rustlings as men marked escape routes.

Conan quietly cursed under his breath. He was all but standing over the
accursed fool's body. To move would only draw attention more quickly
than it would come already. As for running, he had no intention of
dying with a sword in his back. With a small gesture he motioned Tasha
from him. He found the alacrity with which she obeyed a trifle
disappointing.

"We seek Captain Murad," one of the guardsmen shouted into the silence.
An oft-broken nose gave him a brawler's face. The other tugged at a
straggly mustache and stared superciliously about the room. The Kothian
tried to scuttle into the deeper shadows, but the broken-nosed soldier
froze him with a glare. "You, innkeeper! This smuggling scum you serve
seem to have no tongues. Where is Captain Murad? I know he came in
here."

The Kothian's mouth worked soundlessly, and he scrubbed his hands all
the harder in his apron.

"Find your tongue, fool, before I slit it! If the captain's with a
wench, still he must hear the word I bring without delay. Speak, or
I'll have your hide for boots!"

Abruptly the straggly-mustached soldier caught the speaker's tunic
sleeve. "It's Murad, Tavik!" he exclaimed, pointing.

From the still form of the officer the guards' eyes rose inexorably to
Conan, their faces hard. The Cimmerian waited calmly, seemingly
unaffected by their stares. What would happen, would happen.

"Your work, big man?" Tavik asked coldly. "Striking an officer of the
City Guard will cost you the bastinado. Abdul, see to waking the
captain."

They had rested too long under the protection of their position with
regard to the smugglers, the big youth thought. Tavik drew his curved
sword, but held it casually, lowered by his side, as though he did not
believe anyone there would actually make him use it. The other did not
even reach for his weapon.

Abdul squatted beside Captain Murad's body, grasped the officer's arms,
and stiffened. "He's dead," he breathed, then shouted it. "He's dead,
Tavik!"

Conan kicked the bench he had been sitting on at Abdul, who was
attempting to leap to his feet and unsheathe his sword at the same
time. As the scraggly-mustached man danced awkwardly to avoid falling
over the impediment, the Cimmerian's own blade was bared. At his
companion's cry, Tavik had raised his blade high to slash, which might
have been all very well had his opponent been unarmed. Now he paid for
his error as Conan's steel sliced across his exposed belly. With a
shrill scream, Tavik dropped his sword, fingers clutching in a vain
attempt to keep in the thick ropes of his intestines as he followed the
weapon to the stone floor.

Conan leaped back as he recovered from the killing stroke, his
broadsword arcing down barely in time to block Abdul's thrust at his
side. The force of the blow knocked the guardsman's tulwar wide, and
doomed desperation filled his dark eyes in the moment before the
Cimmerian's blade pierced his throat to stand out a handspan from the
back of his neck. As Conan jerked his sword free from the collapsing
corpse, Tavik gave one last kick and died.

Grimly the Cimmerian wiped his sword on Abdul's tunic and sheathed it.
The common room, he realized, now held but half those it had at the
beginning of his fight, and more were disappearing every moment through
the doors that led to alleys beside and behind the building. No man or
wench in the tavern but would want to be able to deny being in the
Golden Crescent on the day three of the City Guard died there.

The Kothian tavernkeeper cracked the door to the street enough to peer
out, then closed it with a groan. "Guardsmen," he muttered. "Half a
score of them. And they look impatient. They'll be in here in a trice
to see what's keeping those two. How am I to explain this happening in
my tavern? What am I to tell them-" His hand snatched the gold coin
Conan tossed him, and he was not too despondent to bite it before
making it disappear beneath his apron.

"Tell them, Banaric," Conan said, "of the slavers from Khoraf who
killed the captain in a quarrel, and then the guardsmen. A dozen
slavers. Too many for you to interfere."

Banaric nodded reluctantly. "They might believe it. Maybe."

They were the last two in the tavern, Conan saw. Even Tasha had gone.
And without a word, he thought sourly. In a matter of moments the
entire day had gone rotten. At least he would not have to worry about
being hounded by the City Guard. Or he would not if the Kothian told
the story he had been paid to tell.

"Remember, Banaric," he said. "A dozen Khorafi slavers." He waited for
the innkeeper's nod, then slipped out the back.


Chapter II

Conan hurried away from the Golden Crescent by the network of alleys,
barely as wide as his shoulders and stinking of urine and offal, that
crisscrossed the area of the tavern. His plans had been for a day in
Tasha's arms, but that had certainly gone aglimmering. He slipped in
the slime underfoot, barely caught himself, and cursed. Even if he
managed to find the jade again, he was not sure he wanted to spend time
with a woman who would take his gift and then run away-without so much
as a kiss-just because of a little trouble. There were other women, and
other uses for his time. Even after buying the topaz for her and
tossing a gold piece to Banaric, Conan's purse was far from empty. The
"fish" unloaded the night before on a secluded beach had been Khitan
silks and the famed Basralla laces from Vendhya, and the prices paid
for them were generous. He would spend a little coin on himself.

Deep into the heart of the sprawling city he went, far from the harbor
district, yet all parts of Sultanapur had their share of bustling
commerce. There were no ox-drawn carts here, but still the narrow
streets were filled with humanity, for coppersmith's shop and bawdy
house might lie cheek by jowl with rich merchant's dwelling, and tavern
and potter's shop with temple. Buyers, sellers and worshipers were all
jumbled in the throng.

Sleek ladies in veils of lace, trailed by servants to carry their
purchases, jostled with apprentices bearing rolled rugs or stacked
bolts of cloth on their shoulders. Filthy urchins with greedy lingers
stalked the purses of fat men with velvet tunics and even greedier
eves. In a small square a juggler kept six lighted brands in the air at
the same time while shouting curses at trulls in girdles of coin and
little else who solicited those who paused to watch.

At every street crossing, fruit peddlers sold pomegranates, oranges and
figs, some from trays held before them by a strap about the neck, some
from wicker panniers on donkeys. From time to time the donkeys added
their braying to the general tumult. Geese and chickens in reed cages
honked and cackled, pigs tethered by a leg grunted disconsolately.
Hawkers cried a hundred varied wares, and merchants bargained at the
top of their lungs, shouting that such a price would ruin them, then
going lower still.

A copper bought a large handful of figs that Conan ate as he strolled
and looked, and occasionally made a purchase. From a swordsmith,
working his forge beneath a striped awning with the ring of hammer on
white-hot metal, the Cimmerian purchased a straight-bladed dagger and
sheath that he tucked through his sword-belt in the small of his back.
Finely carved amber beads went into his pouch with the thought that
they would grace the neck of some other wench than Tasha. Unless, of
course, she apologized prettily for running away as she had.

A narrow, shadowed shop, presided over by a skinny man with an unctuous
manner and oily countenance, yielded a white hooded cloak of the
thinnest wool, not for the cold that never came in Sultanapur, but to
keep off the sun. He had looked for such a cloak for some time, but
most men in Sultanapur wore turbans, and few cloaks with hoods were
sold, not to mention cloaks large enough to fit across his shoulders.

A ragged man passed Conan, bearing on his back a large clay jar wrapped
in damp cloths. The handle of a ladle protruded from the mouth of the
jar, and brass cups clinked against each other as they dangled on
chains along the jar's sides. The sight of him awoke in Conan the
thirst that came from eating so many sweetly ripe figs, for the ragged
man was a water seller. In a city so hot and so dry as Sultanapur,
water had a price as surely as did wine.

Conan motioned the man aside and squatted against a wall while the
water seller set down his jar. The chains reached far enough for a
Turanian to stand and drink, but Conan must needs either squat or
stoop. A copper passed into the water seller's bony hand, and Conan
took his cup of water.

Not so cool by far as a mountain stream in Cimmeria, he thought,
freshened by the runoff of the spring thaws. But such thoughts were
worse than useless, serving only to make the heat seem to suck moisture
from a man even faster. He drew up the hood of his new cloak to give
himself a little shade. As he drank, fragments of talk drifted to him
through the cacophony of the street. Tasha occupied his mind, and but
fragments of fragments registered on his ear.

". . . Forty coppers the cask is outrageous . . ."

". . . At least ten dead, they say, and one a general . . ."

". . . A prince, I heard . . ."

". . . If my husband finds out, Mahmoud . . ."

". . . A Vendhyan plot. . ."

". . . While the wazam of Vendhya is in Aghrapur talking peace . . ."

". . . So I seduced his daughter to even the bargain . . ."

". . . The assassin was a northland giant. . ."

Conan froze with the brass cup at his lips. Slowly he raised his eyes
to the water seller's face. The man, staring idly at the wall against
which the Cimmerian crouched, seemed merely to await the return of his
cup, but sweat beaded his dark forehead where there had been none
before, and his feet shuffled as though he would be away quickly.

"What did you hear, water seller?"

The ragged man jumped, rocking his jar. He had to catch it to keep it
from toppling. "Master? I ... I hear nothing." A nervous laugh
punctuated his words. "There are always rumors, master. Always rumors,
but I listen only to the babblings of my own head."

Conan slid a silver piece into the man's calloused palm. "What did you
hear just now?" He asked in a milder tone. "About a northlander."

"Master, I sell water. Nothing else." Conan merely continued looking at
him, but the man blinked and swallowed as though at a snarl. "Master,
they say ... they say there are soldiers dead, City Guardsmen, and
perhaps a general or a prince. They say Vendhyans hired it done, and
that one of the slayers ..."

"Yes? "

The water seller swallowed again. "Master, they, say one of the slayers
was a ... a giant. A ... a northlander."

Conan nodded. The tale obviously had its roots in the occurrence at the
Golden Crescent. And if so much were common knowledge, in however
distorted a fashion, how much else was known also? His name perhaps? He
did not worry about the how of the story spreading. Smugglers did not
usually turn against their own, but perhaps one in the tavern that
morning had been caught and put to the question by the guardsmen who
had been in the street. Mayhap Banaric had not felt a gold piece enough
for a lie in the face of the guardsmen's certain anger at what they
found. At the moment he had quite enough worry in how to avoid capture
in a city where he stood out like a camel in a zenanna. His eyes
searched the street, and a possibility came to him. At least there were
no guardsmen. Yet.

He emptied the cup with a gulp, but held it a moment longer. "It is a
good thing to sell, water," he said. "Water and nothing else. Men who
sell water and nothing else never have to look over their shoulders for
fear of who might be there."

"I understand, master," the water seller gasped. "I sell water and
nothing else. Nothing else, master."

Conan nodded and released the cup. The water seller heaved his jar onto
his back so quickly that water slopped over the sides, and hurried into
the streaming crowd. Before he was out of sight, Conan had already
dismissed the ragged fellow from his mind. There would be a reward,
likely as distorted as the numbers of guardsmen slain, and the water
seller would sooner or later try for part of it, but with luck, he
would remain silent for perhaps as much as an hour. In truth, the
Cimmerian would settle for a tenth of that.

Drawing the hood of his cloak farther forward, Conan strode hurriedly
down the street, searching for a vendor of a particular sort. A sort of
vendor who did not seem to be present, he thought angrily. There were
sellers of brass bowls and wicker baskets, of tunics and sandals and
gilded jewelry, but not of what he sought. But he had seen apprentices
carrying ... There it was. A rug merchant's stall, filled with carpets
in all sizes and colors, stacked, rolled and hanging on the walls.

As Conan entered, the plump merchant hurried forward, hands rubbing in
anticipation and a professional smile on his face. "Welcome, master.
Welcome. Here you may see the finest carpets in all of Sultanapur. Nay,
in all of Turan. Carpets to grace the palace of King Yildiz himself,
may Mitra bless him thrice daily. Carpets from Iranistan, from-"

"That one," Conan cut him off, pointing to a rug that lay near the
front of the stall in a roll thicker than a man's head. He was careful
to keep his face down. The sight of blue eyes would bring more than a
sign for warding off the evil eye now.

"Indeed, master, you are truly a connoisseur. Without even the bother
of unrolling it, you chose the finest carpet in my shop. For the trifle
of one gold piece-"

This time the rug merchant's jaw dropped, for Conan immediately thrust
a gold piece into the man's hands. It left him with little in his
purse, but he had no time for bargaining, however odd that might strike
the merchant.

The plump man's mouth worked as he attempted to regain his equilibrium.
"Uh, yes, master. Of course. I will fetch apprentices to bear your
purchase. Two should be enough. They are strong lads."

"No need," Conan told him. Sword and swordbelt were hastily stored just
inside the folds of the rug. "I will carry it myself."

"But it is too heavy for one. . . ."

The merchant faded into astounded silence as Conan easily hoisted the
rolled carpet to his left shoulder, then casually shifted it to a more
comfortable position. The thick tube on his shoulder would give him an
excuse to walk with back bent and head down, and thus seem not quite so
tall. So long as he kept the hood of his cloak well forward, he might
be able to pass as just one more of the scores of men bearing carpets
through the streets for weavers or rug sellers.

He noticed the open-mouthed merchant staring at him. "A wager," Conan
explained, and as he could not think of the possible terms of such a
bet, he hurried from the shop. As he left, he could feel the man's
popping eyes on his back.

Once out in the narrow street there was a temptation to walk as swiftly
as he could, but he forced himself to move slowly. Few laborers or
apprentices in Sultanapur moved more quickly than a slow stroll unless
under the eyes of their master. Conan gritted his teeth and matched his
pace to that of the real laborers he saw. Even so, he impatiently used
the rug to fend his way through the streams of people. Most moved from
his path with no more than a muttered curse. A growl from beneath his
hood answered the few who shouted their curses and shook a fist or
caught at his sleeve. Having gotten a closer look at him, each of the
latter decided they were needed urgently elsewhere. Surreptitious
glances under the edge of his hood told Conan he was almost halfway to
the harbor.

A change in the noise of the street slowly came to the Cimmerian's
awareness. Leg-tied pigs and tethered sheep still grunted and bleated
unabated, and the cackling from high-stacked wicker cages filled with
chickens continued unaltered. But a woman bargaining loudly for a shawl
of Vendhyan lace paused, then turned her back to the throng and
continued more quietly. A peddler of pins and ribbons faltered in his
cry and drew back to the mouth of an alley before giving voice again.
Others started or stuttered in their tradings, or cast nervous eyes
about.

It was not he who excited them. Of that Conan was sure. There was
something behind him, but he could not turn to look. He strained his
ears to penetrate the wall of the farmyard babble and market chatter.
Yes. Among the many feet that walked that street were some number that
moved to a silent cadence. Marching feet. Soldiers' feet. The Cimmerian
moved his right hand to the rolled carpet as though to balance it. The
hand rested not a fingerwidth from the hilt of his sword, hidden in
those folds.

"I tell you, Gamel," came a harsh voice at Conan's rear, "this big oaf
is naught but a laborer. A weaver's man. Let us not waste our time with
him."

A second speaker answered in tones smoother and touched with mockery.
"And I say he is big enough, if he stood straight. This could well be
the giant barbar the Venehyans hired. Will you forget the reward,
Alsan? Can you forget a thousand gold pieces?"

"Gamel, I still say-"

"You there! Big fellow! Stand and turn!"

Conan stopped in his tracks. A thousand gold pieces, he thought. Surely
Captain Murad could not be worth so much. But these men said he fit the
description of the one for whom that amount would be paid, and he could
not imagine that it could be someone else. Matters were occurring in
Sultanapur of which he had no knowledge, but it seemed they concerned
him all the same.

Slowly the Cimmerian turned, keeping the thick roll between the
guardsmen and his face, making no effort this time to hurry people from
the path of the swinging rug. The soldiers had continued to approach,
apparently satisfied that he obeyed. By the time he was sideways to
them, they had reached him.

A hand grabbed his arm. "All right, you," the harsh voice said. "Let's
see your face."

Conan let the hand pull him around a handspan farther. Then, jerking
his scabbarded broadsword from the rug, he dropped the heavy, roll
against the man who tugged. He was only vaguely aware of the
thin-mustached guardsman falling with a scream and the snap of a broken
leg. His eyes were all for the twenty more filling the narrow street
behind the first.

For the merest instant all were frozen; Conan was the first to move.
His hand swept out to topple wicker cages of wildly squawking chickens
into the soldiers' midst. Chickens exploded from burst cages. Peddlers
and shoppers, shrieking as mindlessly as the birds, fled in all
directions, some even trying to trample a way through the soldiers, who
in turn attempted to club people from their way. The pigs' grunts had
become desperate squeals and sheep leaped and jerked at their bonds.

Conan jerked his blade free of its sheath as a guardsman burst out of
the confusion and hurdled the downed man as he drew his tulwar.
Sidestepping, the Cimmerian struck. The Turanian gagged loudly as he
doubled over the steel that bit deep into his middle. Before the man
could fall, Conan had freed his blade to slash at the cords binding the
nearest sheep. Fleeing the flashing blade, the wooly animals darted
toward the jumble of soldiers shouting for the way to be cleared and
shoppers screaming for mercy, the whole spiced with scores of
fluttering, squawking chickens. Two more soldiers struggled clear of
the pack only to fall over the sheep. Conan waited no longer. He ran,
pulling over more cages of chickens behind him as he did.

At the first corner he turned right, at the next, left. Startled eyes,
already turned in the direction of the tumult, followed his flight. He
had gained only moments, he knew. Most of those who saw him would deny
everything when asked by the City Guard, for such was the way of life
in Sultanapur, but some would talk. Enough to make a trail for the
soldiers to follow. Ahead of him an ox-drawn, two-wheeled cart, piled
high with lashed bales to a height greater than a man, passed his line
of sight on a crossing street. Another high-wheeled cart followed
behind, the ox-driver walking beside his animal with a goad, then
another.

Abruptly Conan stopped before the stall of a potter. Before the
potter's goggling eyes, he calmly reached up and wiped the blood from
his sword on the man's yellow awning. Hurriedly resheathing his blade,
Conan fastened the belt around his waist as he ran on. At the next
crossing street he looked back. The potter, staring after him and
pointing, stopped his shouting when he saw Conan's gaze on him. This
man would certainly talk, even before the guardsmen asked. It was a
risk he took, the Cimmerian knew, but if it failed, he would be no
worse off than before. But it would work, he told himself. He had the
same feeling that he had when the dice were going to fall his way.

Sure that the potter marked his direction, Conan turned in the
direction from which the carts had come. As he started down the street,
he let out a breath he had not been aware of holding. The feeling of
certainty was assuredly working better than it usually did with dice.
Still another ox-cart rumbled down the narrow street toward him.

Moving back against a wall to let the cart pass, he stepped around it
to the far side as soon as it was by. When his legs were in line with
the tall wheels, he slowed his pace to the trudge of the ox. The potter
would tell the guardsmen of the direction he had gone, while he went
off the opposite way. It was but another moment gained, but enough
moments such as these could add up to a man's life.

As soon as the cart had crossed the street where the potter stood,
Conan hurried on ahead. He had to get to the harbor and the jumble of
docks, warehouses, and taverns, where he could find safety among the
smugglers. And he had to find out why there was a reward of a thousand
pieces of gold being offered for him. The first was the most urgent,
yet it would not be so easy as simply walking there. He was far from
inconspicuous, and the white cloak would soon be added to the
description of the man for whom the reward was offered. Without the
hood, though, his blue eyes would leave a trail easily followed by
guardsmen seeking a big northlander. The question, then, was how to
exchange the cloak for one of another color, but also with a hood,
while not letting his eyes be seen.

He watched for a cloak he might buy or steal, but saw few with hoods
and none large enough to avoid looking ludicrous on his broad
shoulders. There was no point in drawing eyes by looking the clown when
the purpose was to avoid them. As quickly as he could without gaining
attention for his speed, pausing at every street crossing to look for
guardsmen, he moved toward the harbor. Or tried to. Three times he was
forced to turn aside by the sight of City Guardsmen, and once he barely
had time to duck into a shop selling cheap gilded jewelry before half a
score of guardsmen strode by. He was going north, he realized, parallel
to the harbor district, and certainly not toward it.

Guardsmen's spears above the heads of the crowd before him turned him
down a side street packed with humanity. Away from the harbor, he
thought with a curse as he pushed through the crowd, then cursed again
when shouts for the way to be cleared indicated the soldiers had
entered the same street. They gave no sign that they had seen him, but
that could not last for long, not with him standing a head taller than
the next tallest man on the street. He lengthened his stride, then
almost immediately slowed again. A score of spear points, glittering in
the sunlight, approached from ahead.

This time he did not waste breath on curses. An alley, smelling
strongly of offal and chamber pots, offered the only escape. As he
ducked into it, he realized that he had been there before, in company
with Hordo during his first days with the one-eyed man's band of
smugglers. Stairs of crumbling brown brick, narrow yet, even so, all
but filling the width of the alley, led to the floor above a fruit
vendor's stall. Conan took them two at a time. A stooped man in robes
of brown camel's hair jumped as the Cimmerian pushed open the rough
wooden door without knocking.

The small room was sparsely furnished, with a cot against one wall and
an upright chest with many small drawers against another. A table that
leaned on a badly mended leg sat in the middle of the bare wooden
floor, a single stool beside it. A few garments hung on pegs in the
walls. All seemed old and weathered, and the stooped man was a match
for his possessions. Sparse white hair and olive skin blotched with age
and wrinkled like often-folded parchment made the fellow seem able to
claim a century. His hands were like knobby claws as they clutched a
packet of oilskin, and his dark eyes, hooded and glaring, were the only
part of him that showed any spark of vitality.

"My apologies," Conan said quickly. He wracked his brain for the old
man's name. "I did not mean to enter so abruptly, Ghurran." That was
it. "I fish with Hordo."

Ghurran grunted and bent to peer fussily at the packets and twists of
parchment atop the rickety table. "Hordo, eh? His joints aching again?
He should find another trade. The sea does not suit his bones. Or
perhaps you come for yourself? A love philtre, perhaps?"

"No." Half of Conan's mind was on listening for the soldiers below. Not
until they were gone could he risk putting his nose outside. "What I
truly need," he muttered, "is a way to become invisible until I reach
the harbor."

The old man remained bent over the table, but his head swiveled toward
the big youth. "I compound herbs, and occasionally read the stars," he
said dryly. "You want a wizard. Why not try the love philtre?
Guaranteed to put a woman helpless in your arms for the night. Of
course, perhaps a handsome young man like you does not need such."

Conan shook his head distractedly. The parties of guardsmen had met at
the mouth of the alley. A thin murmuring floated to him, but he could
not make out any words. They seemed in no hurry to move on. All of this
trouble, and he did not even know why. A Vendhyan plot, those he had
overheard had said. "May their sisters sell for a small price," he
muttered in Vendhyan.

"Katar!" Ghurran grunted. The old man lowered himself jerkily to his
knees and fumbled under the table for a dropped packet. "My old fingers
do not hold as once they did. What was that language you spoke?"

"Vendhyan," Conan replied without taking his mind from the soldiers. "I
learned a little of the tongue, since we buy so much fish from
Vendhyans." Most of the smugglers could speak three or four languages
after a fashion, and his quick ear had already picked up considerable
Vendhyan as well as smatterings of several others. "What do you know of
Vendhya?" he went on.

"Vendhya? How should I know of Vendhya. Ask me of herbs. I know
something of herbs."

"It is said that you will pay for herbs and seeds from far lands, and
that you ask many questions of these lands when you buy. Surely you
have purchased some herbs from Vendhya."

"All plants have uses, but the men who bring them to me rarely know
those uses. I must try to draw the information from them, asking all
they know of the country from which the herbs or seeds came in order to
sift out a few grains that are useful to me." The old man got to his
feet and paused for breath, dusting his bony hands on his robes. "I
have bought some trifles from Vendhya, and I am told it is a land full
of intrigue, a dangerous land for the unwary, for those who too easily
believe the promises of a man or the flattery of a woman. Why do you
wish to know of Vendhya?"

"It is said in the streets that a prince has been slain, or perhaps a
general, and that Vendhyans hired the killing done."

"I see. I have not been out the entire day." Ghurran chewed at a
gnarled knuckle. "Such a thing is unlikely at this time, for it is said
that wazam of Vendhya, the chief advisor to King Bhandarkar, visits
Aghrapur to conclude a treaty, and many nobles of the royal court at
Ayodhya visit as well. Yet remember the intrigues. Who can say? You
still have not told me why you are so interested in this."

Conan hesitated. The old man provided poultices and infusions for half
the smugglers in Sultanapur. That so many continued to trust him was in
his favor. "The rumor is that the assassin was a northlander, and the
City Guard seems to think I am the man."

The parchment-skinned man tucked his hands into the sleeves of his robe
and peered at Conan with his head tilted. "Are you? Did you take
Vendhyan gold?"

"I did not," Conan replied. "Nor did I kill a prince, or a general."
Assuredly no man he had faced that day had been either.

"Very well," Ghurran said. His lips tightened reluctantly. Then he
sighed and took a dusty dark-blue cloak from the wall. "Here. This will
make you somewhat less conspicuous than the one you wear now."

Surprised, Conan nonetheless quickly exchanged his white cloak for the
other. Despite the dust and folds of hanging, perhaps for years, the
dark-blue wool was finely woven and showed little wear. It was tight
across the Cimmerian's shoulders, yet had obviously been made for a man
bigger than Ghurran.

"Age shrinks all men," the stooped herbalist said as though he had read
Conan's mind.

Conan nodded. "I thank you, and I will remember this." The sound of the
soldiers had faded away while he was talking. He cracked the door and
peered out. The narrow street was jammed with people, but none were
guardsmen. "Fare you well, Ghurran. And again, my thanks." Without
waiting for the other man to speak again, Conan slipped out, descended
the stairs and melded into the crowd. The harbor district, he thought.
Once he reached that, there would be time to consider other matters.


Chapter III

The patrols of guardsmen were a nuisance to the young Turanian who made
his way out of the harbor district and into an area that seemed
favored, as nearly as he could tell, solely by beggars, bawds and
cutpurses. He avoided the soldiers deftly, and none of the area's
denizens favored him with a second glance.

A Corinthian mother had given him features that were neither Corinthian
nor Turanian, but rather simply dark-eyed and not quite handsome.
Clean-shaven at the moment, he could pass as a native of any one of a
half a score of countries and had done so more than once. He was above
medium height, with a rawboned lanky build that often fooled men into
underestimating his strength, several times to the saving of his life.
His garb was motley, a patched Corinthian doublet that had once been
red, baggy Zamoran breeches of pale cotton, well-worn boots from
Iranistan.

Only the tulwar at his side and his turban, none too clean and none too
neatly wrapped, were Turanian, he thought sourly. Four years gone from
his own country and before he was back a tenday, he found himself
skulking about the dusty streets of Sultanapur trying to avoid the City
Guard. Not for the first time since leaving home at nineteen, he
regretted his decision not to follow in his father's footsteps as a
spice merchant. As always, though, the regret lasted only until he
could remind himself of how boring a spice merchant's life was, but of
late that reminding took longer than it once had.

Turning into an alley, he paused to see if anyone took notice. A single
footsore trull began to flash a smile at him, then valued his garb in
her mind and trudged on. The rest of the throng streamed by without an
eye turning his way. He backed down the stench-filled alley, keeping a
watch on the street, until he felt a rough wooden door under his
fingers. Satisfied that he was still unobserved, he ducked through the
doorway into darkness.

Instantly a knife at his throat stopped him in his tracks, but all he
did was say quietly, "I am Jelal. I come from the West." Anything else,
he knew, and the knife wielder would have used his blade, not to
mention the two other men he was sure were in the pitch-black room.

Flint struck steel, light flared, and a lamp that smoked and reeked of
rancid oil was held to his face. Two, he saw, beside the one who still
held a razor edge to his throat, and even the man with the lamp, a
thick half-moon scar curling around his right eye, clutched a bared
dagger.

The scar-faced man stepped aside and jerked his head toward a door
leading deeper into the building. "Go on," he said. Only then was the
knife lowered from Jelal's throat.

Jelal did not say anything. This was not the first such meeting for
him, nor even the twentieth. He went on through the second door.

The windowless room he entered was what was to be expected in this
quarter of the city, rough walls of clay brick, a dirt floor, a crude
table tilted on a cracked leg. What was not to be expected were the
beeswax candles giving light, the white linen cloth spread on the table
top, or the crystal flagon of wine sitting on the cloth beside two cups
of hammered gold. Nor was the man seated behind the table one to be
expected in such a place. A plain dark cloak, nondescript yet of
quality too fine for that region of Sultanapur, covered much of his
garb. His narrow thin-nosed face, with mustaches and small beard neatly
waxed to points, seemed more suited to a palace than a district of
beggars. He spoke as soon as Jelal entered.

"It is well you come today, Jelal. Each time I must come out into the
city increases the risk I will be seen and identified. You have made
contact?" He waved a soft-skinned hand with a heavy gold seal-ring on
the forefinger toward the crystal flagon. "Have some wine for the
heat."

"I have made contact," Jelal replied carefully, "but-"

"Good, my boy. I knew that you would, even in so short a time. Four
years in Corinthia and Koth and Khauran, posing as every sort of
merchant and peddler, legal and otherwise, and never once caught or
even suspected. You are perhaps the best man I have ever had. But I
fear your task in Sultanapur has changed."

Jelal drew himself up. "My lord, I request to be reposted to the Ibari
Scouts."

Lord Khalid, the man who ordered and controlled all the spies of King
Yildiz of Turan, stared in amazement. "Mitra strike me, why?"

"My lord, you say I was never once suspected in four years, and it is
true. But it is true because I not only acted the part, I was a
merchant, or a peddler as the instant demanded, spending most of my
days buying and selling, talking of markets and prices. My lord, I
became a soldier in part to avoid becoming a merchant like my father. I
was a good soldier, and I ask to serve Turan and the King where I can
serve them best, as a soldier once more in the Ibari Mountains."

The spy master drummed his fingers on the table. "My boy, you were
chosen for the very reasons you cite. Your service was all in the
southern mountains, so no western foreigner is likely to ever have seen
you as a soldier. Your boyhood training to be a merchant not only
prepared you to play that part to perfection, but also, because of a
merchant's need to winnow fact from rumor to find the proper market and
price, it made sure that you could do the same with other kinds of
rumors and give reports of great value. As you have. You serve Turan
best where you are."

"But, my lord-"

"Enough, Jelal. There is no time. What do you know of events in
Sultanapur this day?"

Jelal sighed. "There are many rumors," he began slowly, "reporting
everything but an invasion. Piecing together the most likely, I should
say that Prince Tureg Amal was killed this morning. Beyond that I
should say the strongest rumor is that a northlander was involved. As
it was not what I came to Sultanapur for, I put no more than half my
mind to it, I fear."

"Half your mind, and you get one of two right." The older man nodded
approvingly. "You are indeed the best of my men. I do not know where
the rumor of a northlander was born. Perhaps someone saw such a man in
the street."

"But the guardsmen, my lord. They seek-"

"Yes, yes. The rumors have spread even to them, and I've done nothing
to change that state of affairs for the moment. Let the true culprits
think they have escaped notice. It is not the first time soldiers have
been sent chasing shadows, nor will it be the last. And a few innocent
foreigners-if any of them can truly be called innocent-a few such put
to the question, or even killed, is a small price to pay if it helps us
take the true villains unaware. Believe me when I say the throne of
Turan could be at stake."

Jelal managed a nod. He was aware from experience just how coldly
practical this soft-appearing man could be, even if the stakes were
considerably less than the Turanian throne. "And the prince, my lord?
You said I was half right."

"Tureg Amal," Kalid sighed, "drunkard, wastrel, lecher, and High
Admiral of Turan, died this morning of a poisoned needle thrust into
his neck. Not by a northern giant, as the rumors say, but by a woman. A
Vendhyan assassin, according to reports."

"An assassin?" Jelal said. "My lord, the prince's ways with women are
well know. Could he not perhaps simply have driven some wench to
murder?"

The spy master shook his head. "As much as I should prefer it so, no.
The servants at Tureg Amal's palace have been questioned thoroughly. A
Vendhyan woman was delivered to the palace this morning, supposedly a
gift from a merchant of that country seeking added protection for his
cargoes on the Vilayet. Within the hour the prince was dead, the keeper
of his zenanna drugged, and the woman had disappeared unseen from a
heavily guarded palace."

"It certainly sounds the work of an assassin," Jelal agreed, "but-"

"There could be worse," the older man cut him off. "The commander of
the prince's bodyguard, one Captain Murad, was also slain this morning,
along with two of his men, apparently in a tavern brawl. I do not like
such coincidences. Perhaps it was unrelated, and perhaps they were
silenced after effecting the woman's escape. And if men of the High
Admiral's bodyguard took gold to aid in his death ... well, that
scandal could do more harm than the old fool's murder."

"Be that as it may, my lord, the other does not make sense. I
understand that the wazam of Vendhya is in Aghrapur to negotiate a
treaty with King Yildiz. Surely the King of Vendhya would not
countenance an assassination while his chief counselor was in our
capital, in our very hands. And if he did, why the High Admiral? The
King's death would create turmoil, while the prince's creates only
anger toward Vendhya."

"The King's death by a Vendhyan assassin would also create war with
Vendhya," Khalid said dryly, "while Tureg Amal's. . ." He shrugged. "I
do not know the why of it, my boy, but Vendhyans suck intrigue with
their mothers' milk and do nothing without a purpose, usually
nefarious. As for the wazam, Karim Singh sailed from Aghrapur
yesterday. And the treaty, I was suspicious of it before, now I am
doubly so. Less than five years ago they nearly went to war with us
over their claims to Secunderam. Now, without a protest, the wazana
puts his seal on a treaty that does not so much as mention that city.
And one that favors Turan on several other points, as well. I had
thought they sought to lull us while they prepared some stroke. Now I
no longer know what to think." He began to roll the tip of his beard
between his thumb and forefinger, the greatest outward sign of inner
turmoil that he ever showed.

Reluctantly Jelal felt the puzzle catching at him, as it so often had
before. The desire to return to soldiering was still there but pushed
to the back of his mind. For the moment. "What can I do, my lord?" he
asked at last. "The Vendhyan assassin is surely no longer in the city."

"That is true," the spy master replied, and his voice hardened as he
spoke. "But I want answers. I need them. The King depends on me for
them. What is Vendhya up to? Are we to expect a war? Captain Murad's
death may lead to some answers. Use the contacts you have made with the
lawless underside of Sultanapur. Find a trail to the answers I need and
follow it all the way to Vendhya if you must. But bring me the
answers."

"I will, my lord," Jelal promised. But to himself he promised that this
was the last time. Whether he was returned to the Man Scouts or not,
after this one last puzzle, he would be a spy no more.


Chapter IV

Despite the cloak Ghurran had given him, Conan kept close to the sides
of the narrow, bustling streets, on the edges of the continuous flow of
people. It was true that the dark-blue cloak would not bring a moment's
glance from a guardsman looking for one of white linen, and the hood
did hide his face and damning blue eyes, but the sheer size of him was
difficult to miss. Few men in Sultanapur came close to his height or
breadth of shoulder, and certainly none of them was among the crowds
thronging the streets he traveled this day. The big Cimmerian stood out
like a Remaira stallion among mules.

Five times after leaving the herbalist Conan was forced to turn aside
for patrols of guardsmen, their precisely slanted spears glinting in
the bright sun as though to give warning of their coming, but luck
seemed at last to be with him. His progress toward the harbor was
constant, if zig-zag. High-wheeled ox-carts began once more to be
almost as numerous as people. The long stone shapes of warehouses rose
about him, and the tall white towers of the city granaries. Men with
the calloused hands and sweat-stained tunics of dockers and roustabouts
outnumbered all but those with the rolling walk and forked queues of
seafarers. Half the women were trulls in narrow girdles of jingling
coin and thin silk or less, while most of the rest cast a sharp eye for
a purse to cut or a bolt of silk or lace that could be snatched from a
cart. Here, too, were people who knew him.

"An hour's pleasure, big man?" cooed a buxom doxy with hennaed hair
piled high on her head and gilded brass hoops in her ears. She moved
closer and pressed nearly bare breasts against his arm, dropping her
voice for his ear alone. "You fool, the City Guard has already taken up
three dockers just for being tall. And they are questioning outlanders,
so you're doubly at risk. Now, put your arm around me, and we will go
to my room. I can hide you till it all quiets. And I'll charge you
but-oh, Mitra, I'll not charge you at all."

Conan grinned despite himself. "A generous offer, Zara. But I must find
Hordo."

"I've not seen him, Conan. And you cannot risk looking. Come with me."

"Another time," he said, and she squealed as he pinched a plump
buttock.

In short order a sailor in a tar-smeared tunic and a bearded
warehouseman had repeated Zara's warning. A slender wench with a
virgin's face and innocent eyes-and a cut-purse's curved blade with
which she constantly toyed-echoed both warning and offer. None knew
where Hordo was to be found, however. Conan almost accepted the slender
woman's offer. The glass had been turned, he knew, and the sands were
running out on him. Did he not find Hordo quickly, he must go to
ground.

A short, wiry man, bent under the weight of a canvas sack on his
shoulder, suddenly caught the Cimmerian's eye. Conan snagged the man's
bony arm with one hand and hauled him out of the stream of people.

"What are you doing?" the Cimmerian's captive whispered between teeth
clenched in a wooden smile. His sunken eyes darted frantically above a
pointed nose, giving him the image of a mouse searching for a hole.
"Mitra, Cimmerian! I stole this not twenty paces from here, and they'll
see it's gone in another moment. Let me go!"

"I am looking for Hordo, Tarek," Conan said softy.

"Hordo? He's at Kafar's warehouse, I think." Tarek stumbled a step as
Conan released him, then rotated his shoulder in a broad gesture. "You
should not grab a man so, Cimmerian. It could be dangerous. And don't
you know the City Guard-"

"-is seeking a big outlander," Conan finished for him. "I know." A
shout rose from the direction Tarek had come, and the little man darted
away like the rodent he resembled. Conan went the other way, soon
passing by a stall where a salt peddler in voluminous robes seemed to
dance with his helpers, they jumping about to dodge while he tugged at
his beard and kicked at them and shouted that the gods were unmerciful
to send the same man blind apprentices and thieves as well. While the
salt vendor leaped and screamed, two girls of no more than sixteen
years hefted one of his canvas sacks between them and disappeared,
unseen by him, into the throng.

Twice more the Cimmerian was forced to turn aside for a patrol of the
City Guard, but Kafar's warehouse was not far, and he reached it
quickly. It was not one of the long stone structures owned by
merchants, but rather a nondescript building of two stories, daubed in
flaking white clay, that might once have held a tavern or a chandler's
shop. In truth it was a warehouse of sorts. A smugglers' warehouse.
Gold in the proper palms kept the guardsmen away, for the time at
least. When the bribes failed, though, because higher authority decided
an example must be made, or more likely because someone decided the
reward for confiscated contraband outweighed the bribes, the smugglers
of Sultanapur would not be slowed for an instant. Scores of such
warehouses could be found near the harbor, and when Kafar's was no
more, two others would spring up in its place.

The splintery wooden door from the street let into a windowless room
dimly lit by rush torches in crude iron sconces. Two of the torches had
guttered out, but no one seemed to notice. A small knot of men, dressed
in mismatched garb from a dozen countries, squatted in a semicircle,
casting dice against a wall. Others sat on casks at a table of boards
laid on sawhorses, engrossed in whispered talk over clay mugs of wine.
A Kothian in a red-striped tunic sat off by himself on a three-legged
stool near a door at the back of the room, idly flipping a dagger to
stick up in the rough-hewn planks of the floor. The air in the room was
hot and close, not only because of the torches, but because few of the
halfscore men there ever made acquaintance with water and most thought
soap a fine gift for a woman, if nicely perfumed, but not a thing to be
used.

Only the Kothian looked up at Conan's entrance. "Do you not know-" he
began.

"I know, Kafar," Conan said curtly. "Is Hordo here?"

The Kothian jerked his head at the door behind him and returned to
flipping his dagger. "The cellar," he said as the blade quivered in the
floor once more.

It was the custom in such places to store the goods of each smuggler in
a separate room, for no man among them trusted those not of his band to
the point of letting him know what kind of "fish" he carried or to
where. Closed doors, iron-bound and held shut with massive iron locks,
lined the corridor in the rear of the building. At the end of the
corridor, beside a wide door leading to the alley behind the warehouse,
were stone stairs leading down.

As the Cimmerian started down the stairs, Hordo opened the door at the
bottom. "Where in Zandru's Nine Hells have you been?" the one-eyed
smuggler roared. "And what in Mitra's name have you been doing?" He was
nearly as big as Conan, though his muscles were overlaid with fat and
the years had weathered his face. Large gold hoops hung from his ears
and a jagged scar ran from under his eye-patch of rough leather down
into the thick black thatch of his beard, pulling the left side of his
mouth into a permanent sneer. "I leave word with Tasha and the next
thing I hear ... Well, get on down here before the Guard seizes you
right in front of me. If that fool wench failed to tell you I needed
you, I'll have her hide."

Conan winced ruefully. So Tasha had been speaking the truth. If he had
not thought she was lying from jealousy, he would have left the Golden
Crescent before the captain arrived, and the City Guard would not be
seeking his head. Well, it was far from the first time he had gotten
into trouble from misreading a woman. And in any case, a man who used
pain to frighten a woman to his bed deserved killing.

"It was not her fault, Hordo," he said, pushing past the bearded man
into the cellar. "I had a trifle of trouble with-" He cut off at the
sight of a stranger in the room, a tall, skinny man in a turban who
stood beside a score of small wooden chests, like the tin-lined chests
in which tea was shipped, stacked on the dirt floor against a dusty
stone wall. Here, too, light came from rush torches. "Who is he?" the
Cimmerian demanded.

"He's called Hasan," the one-eyed man replied impatiently. "A new
'fisherman.' Now! Is there any truth to these rumors, Cimmerian? I do
not care if you've killed Tureg Amal; that old fool is no loss to the
world. But if you have, you must get out of Sultanapur, perhaps out of
Turan, and quickly. Even if you killed no one, you had best remain out
of sight until they catch who did."

"The High Admiral?" Conan exclaimed. "I heard it was a general, though
now that I think of it, someone did say a prince. Hordo, why would I
kill the High Admiral of Turan?"

The lanky man spoke up suddenly. "The rumors say it was hired done. For
enough gold I suppose a man might kill anyone."

Conan's face became stony. "You seem to be calling me liar," he said in
a deadly quiet tone.

"Easy, Cimmerian," Hordo said, and added to the other man, "Are you
trying to get yourself killed, Hasan? Offer this man coin for a
killing, and 'twill be luck if you escape with no more than broken
bones. And if he says he killed no one, then he killed no one."

"I did not say that exactly," Conan said uncomfortably. "There was a
Guard captain, and two or three guardsmen." He glared at the turbaned
man who had made a sound in his throat. "You have a comment about that
as well?"

"You two fighting cocks settle your ruffs," Hordo snapped. "We have a
load of 'fish' to carry. The man who wants it shipped will be here any
instant, and I'll have no bloodshed, or snarling either, in front of
him. He'll seek elsewhere if he thinks we will slay each other before
delivering his chests." His bearded head swung like that of a bear. "I
need my whole crew if we are to get the accursed things to the mouth of
the Zaporoska in the time specified, and the only two who have heeded
my call squabble like dockers with their heads full of wine."

"You told me we'd not sail again for three or four days," Conan said,
walking over to examine the chests. Hasan moved warily out of his way,
but it was the finely crafted boxes that interested him. "The crew are
scattered among the taverns and bordellos," he went on, "hip deep in
women, and with wine fumes where their wits were four hours gone. I
could enjoy a quick journey out of Sultanapur now, but if we find all
twenty by nightfall, I'll become an Erlikite."

"We must sail by dark," Hordo said. "The gold is more for being faster
than agreed, but less for being slower." The scar-faced smuggler moved
Hasan farther away from them with a look, then stepped closer to the
Cimmerian and dropped his voice. "I do not doubt your word, Conan, but
is it you the guardsmen seek? For this captain, perhaps?"

Conan shrugged, but did not stop his study of the chests. "I do not
know," he replied for Hordo's ears alone. "The rumors say nothing of
Murad, and my name is not mentioned." The largest dimension of the
chests was the length of a man's forearm. Their sides were smooth and
plain, and the flat, close-fitting lid of each was held by eight leaden
seals impressed with the image of a bird he had never seen before. "The
tongues of the street speak of Tureg Amal. Still, somewhere words have
been spoken concerning what occurred at the Golden Crescent, or there
would be no big northlander in the tale." He hefted one of the boxes,
trying its weight. To his surprise, it was light enough to have been
packed with feathers. "Men from the northern lands are not so common as
visitors in Sultanapur for that."

"Aye," the one-eyed man agreed sagely. "And it is said that when two
rumors meet, they exchange words. Also that a rumor changes on each
journey from mouth to ear."

"Do you begin to quote aphorisms in your old age, Hordo?" Conan
chuckled. "I know not the how or why of what has happened, but I do
know that trouble sits on my shoulder until it is all made clear."

"I am not too old to try breaking your head," Hordo growled. "And when
was the day trouble did not sit on your shoulder, Cimmerian?" Conan
ignored the question; he had long since decided a man could not live a
free life and avoid trouble at the same time. "What is in these
chests?" he asked.

"Spices," came an answer from the doorway.

The Cimmerian's hand went to his sword-hilt. The new-comer wore a dark
gray cloak with a voluminous hood. As soon as he had closed the cellar
door behind him, he threw back the hood to reveal a narrow, swarthy
face topped by a turban twice as big around as was the fashion in
Turan, fronted by heron feathers held by a pin of opal and silver.
Rings covered his fingers with sapphires and amethysts.

"A Vendhyan!" Hasan burst out.

Hordo motioned him to silence. "I was afraid you were not coming
Patil."

"Not coming?" The Vendhyan's tone was puzzled, but then he smiled
thinly. "Ah, you feared that I was involved with the events spoken of
in the streets. No, I assure you I had nothing to do with the very
unfortunate demise of the High Admiral. Such affairs are not for me. I
am but a humble merchant who must avoid paying the custom both of your
King Yildiz and of my King Bhandarkar if I am to make my poor profit."

"Of course, Patil," Hordo said. "And you have come to the proper men to
see that Yildiz's excisemen take not a single coin of yours. The rest
of my crew is even now preparing our boat for a swift passage. Conan,
go see that all is in readiness." He half-turned his back to the
Vendhyan and made small frantic gestures that only Conan and Hasan
could see. "We must be ready to sail quickly."

Conan knew very well what the gestures meant. He was to go upstairs and
intercept any of Hordo's crew who came staggering in with their brains
half-pickled in wine. Five or six sots stumbling in and making it clear
to this Patil that they were part of the crew would do little to
convince him they could make good on Hordo's promise of sailing
quickly. But Conan did not stir. Instead he hefted the chest again.

"Spices?" he said. "Saffron, pepper, and all the other spices I could
name come across the Vilayet from the east. What spice crosses from the
west?"

"Rare condiments from islands of the Western Sea," Patil replied
smoothly. "They are considered great delicacies in my country."

Conan nodded. "Of course. Yet despite that, I've heard nothing of such
being smuggled. Have you, Hordo?"

The bearded man shook his head doubtfully; worry that Conan was putting
the arrangement in jeopardy creased his face. Patil's face did not
change, but he wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. Conan let the
box fall, and the Vendhyan winced as it thudded on the packed earth.

"Open it," Conan said. "I would see what we carry across the Vilayet."

Patil let out a squawk of protest directed at Hordo. "This is not a
part of our agreement. Kafar told me that you were the most trustworthy
of the smugglers, otherwise I would have gone elsewhere. I offer much
gold for you to deliver my chests and myself to the mouth of the
Zaporoska River, not for you to ask questions and make demands."

"He does offer a great deal of gold, Conan," Hordo said slowly. "Enough
to carry kanda leaf?" the Cimmerian asked. "Or red lotus? You have seen
the wretches who would choose their pipes over wine, or a woman, or
even over food. How much gold to carry that?"

Breathing heavily, Hordo scratched at his beard and grimaced. "Oh, all
right. Open the chests, Patil. I care not what they contain so long as
it is not kanda leaf or red lotus."

"I cannot!" the Vendhyan cried. Sweat made his dark face shine. "My
master would be furious. I demand that-"

"Your master?" Hasan cut him off. "What kind of merchant has a master,
Vendhyan? Or are you something else?"

Conan's voice hardened. "Open the chests."

Patil's eyes shifted in a hunted way. Suddenly he spun toward the door.
Conan lunged to catch a handful of the Vendhyan's flaring cloak, and
the swarthy man whirled back, his fist swinging at the Cimmerian's
face. A tiny flicker of light warned Conan, and he leaped back from the
blow. The leaf-shaped blade that projected from between Patil's fingers
sliced lightly across Conan's cheek just below the eye. Conan's foot
came down on the dropped chest, which turned and sent him sprawling on
his back on the dirt floor.

The instant he was free of Conan's grasp, Patil darted to the door,
flung it open and dashed through. Straight into three men who seemed
each to be supporting the others as they walked, or rather staggered.
The four went down in a thrashing, cursing heap.

Scrambling to his feet, Conan hauled the struggling men out of the
tangle, heaving each aside as soon as he saw that it was one of Hordo's
crew. The last was Patil, and the Vendhyan lay without moving. His
large turban was knocked askew, and it came off completely as the
Cimmerian rolled him onto his back. It was as Conan had feared. Patil's
dark eyes stared at him emptily, twisted with pain, and the Vendhyan's
teeth were bared in a frozen rictus. The would-be killer's fist was
jammed against the center of his chest. Conan had no doubt the
pushdagger's blade had been just long enough to reach the heart.

He brushed a hand across his cheek. The fingertips came away red, but
the cut was little more than a scratch. It was luck, he thought, that
the fellow had not simply stabbed at him. He might never have been
aware of the small dagger until it found his own heart.

"Not the outcome you expected, is it?" he told the corpse. "But I would
rather have you alive to talk."

Hordo pushed past him to grab the Vendhyan's robes. "Let us get this
out of sight of anyone who wanders by the stairs, Cimmerian. No need to
flaunt matters, especially as I'd not like anyone to think we killed
this fool for his goods. Things like that can ruin a man's trade."

Together they dragged the body into the cellar and shut the
iron-strapped door. The three smugglers who had inadvertently stopped
the Vendhyan's escape lay sprawled against a wall, and two of them
stared blearily at the corpse when it was dropped at their feet.

"'S drunker 'n us," muttered an Iranistani wearing a stained and filthy
headcloth.

"'S not drunk," replied the man next to him, a Nemedian who might have
been handsome had his nose not been slit for theft at some time in the
past. "'S dead."

The third man emitted a snore like a ripping sail. "All three of you
shut your teeth," Hordo growled.

Conan touched his cheek again. The blood was already congealing. He was
more interested in the chest he had dropped, though. He set it upright
on the floor and knelt to study the lead seals. The bird impressed in
the gray metal was no more familiar now than before. Vendhyan, perhaps,
though seemingly the chests went in the wrong direction for that. The
seals could be simply a means of keeping the chests tightly closed or a
way to tell if they had been opened. He had also seen such used as
triggers to launch venom-tipped needles or poisonous vapors at those
who pried where they were not wanted. Such were not usually found on
smuggled goods, but then again, these were apparently no ordinary
"fish."

"I'll take the chance," he muttered. His heart pounded as he pushed the
point of his new dagger under one seal.

"Wait, you fool," Hordo began, but with a twist of his wrist, Conan
sliced through the soft lead. "Some day your luck will be used up," the
one-eyed man breathed.

Without replying, the Cimmerian quickly broke the other seals. The
dagger served to lever up the tight-fitting lid. Both stared in
disbelief at the contents of the chest. To the brim it was filled with
small, dried leaves.

"Spices?" Hasan said doubtfully.

Conan cautiously stirred the leaves with his dagger, then scooped up a
handful. They cracked brittlely in his grasp and gave off no aroma. "A
man does not try to kill to hide spices," Conan said. "We'll see what
is in the other chests."

He half-rose from his knees, swayed and sank back down. The heavy
thumping in his chest continued unabated. He touched the cut on his
face once more; it felt as though a piece of leather lay between
fingers and cheek. "That blade." His tongue felt thick around the
words. "There was something on it."

The blood drained from Hordo's face. "Poison," he breathed. "Fight it,
Cimmerian. You must fight it! If you let your eyes close, you'll never
open them again!"

Conan tried again to rise, to go over to the other chests, and again he
almost fell. Hordo caught him, easing him to a sitting position against
the wall.

"The chests," Conan said. "If I'm dying, I want to know why."

"Mitra curse the chests!" Hordo snapped. "And you're not dying. Not if
we can get Ghurran here."

"I will go for him," Hasan said, then subsided under Hordo's glare.

"And how will you do that, who's never seen the man before? Prytanis!"
Hordo stalked across the cellar, and with a hand the size of a small
ham hauled the Nemedian to his feet by a fistful of tunic. His other
hand slapped the slit-nosed fellow's face back and forth. "Grab your
wits, Prytanis! Can you hear me? Listen, Erlik take you, or I'll break
your skull!"

"I am listening," the Nemedian groaned. "By all the gods, do not hit my
head so. It is breaking already."

"Then listen well if you do not want it shattered," Hordo growled, but
he stopped his slapping. "Get you to Ghurran and fetch him here. Tell
him it is poison and tell him there's a hundred gold pieces for him if
he gets here in time. Do you understand that, you sotted spawn of a
camel?"

"I understand," the Nemedian said unsteadily and staggered toward the
door under the impetus of Hordo's shove.

"Then run, curse you! If you fail in this, I'll slit your belly and
hang you with your own guts! Where do you think you're going?" the
one-eyed man added as Hasan made to follow Prytanis from the cellar.

"With him," Hasan replied. "He's so drunk he will not remember what
he's about beyond the first pitcher of wine he sees without someone to
keep him to the task."

"He will remember," Hordo rumbled, "because he knows I will do as I
said. To the word. If you want to do something, put a cloak over Patil
so we do not have to look at him."

"You do not have a hundred pieces of gold, Hordo," Conan said.

"Then you can pay it," the smuggler replied. "And if you die on me, I
will sell your corpse for it."

Conan laughed, but the laughter quickly trailed off in coughing, for he
had no breath to spare. He felt as weak as a child. Even if the others
got him to his feet, he knew it would be all he could do to stand. The
fear and despair in his friend's voice did not touch him, however.
There was an answer he must have, and it lay there in the chests
stacked against the wall. Or at least some clue to the answer must. The
question was simple, yet finding the answer would keep him alive a
while longer, for he would not allow himself to die without it.

He would not die without knowing why.


Chapter V

0ne by one, five more of Hordo's crew staggered into Kafar's cellar,
most as drunk as the first three. Decidedly sickly looks came over
their faces as they heard what had happened. It was not the death of
the Vendhyan, nor even his attempt on Conan, but rather the means of
that attempt. They were used to an honest blade and could even
understand the knife in the back, but poison was something a man could
not defend against. Cups that changed color when poisoned wine was
poured into them were in the realm of wizards, and of princes who could
afford to pay wizards.

Their green faces did not bother Conan, but the funereal glances they
cast at him did. "I am not dead yet," he muttered. The words came
pantingly now.

"Where in Zandru's Nine Hells is Ghurran?" Hordo growled.

As though to punctuate his words, the iron-strapped door banged open,
and Prytanis led Ghurran into the cellar by a firm grip on a bony arm.
The slit-nosed Nemedian appeared to have sobered to a degree, whether
from his exercise in fetching Ghurran or from Hordo's threats.

A leather strap crossed the stooped herbalist's heaving chest,
supporting a small wooden case at his side. Freeing his arm with a
jerk, he scowled about the room, at the swaying drankards and the
still-snoring Iranistani and the cloak-shrouded mound that was the
Vendhyan. "For this I was dragged through the streets like a goat going
to market?" he grated breathlessly. "To treat men fool enough to drink
tainted wine?"

"Tainted wine on a blade," Conan managed. He leaned forward and his
head spun. "Once already today you helped me. Can you do it again,
Ghurran?"

The old man brushed past Hordo and knelt to peer into the Cimmerian's
eyes. "There may be time," he murmured, then in a firmer voice said,
"You have the poisoned blade? Let me see it."

It was Hasan who lifted the cloak enough to tug the push-dagger from
the corpse's chest. He wiped the leaf-shaped blade on the cloak before
handing it to Ghurran.

The herbalist turned the small weapon over in scrawny fingers. A smooth
ivory knob formed the hilt, carved to fit the palm while the blade
projected between the fingers. "An assassin's weapon in Vendhya," he
said. "Or so I have heard such described."

Conan kept his eyes on the old man's parchment-skinned face. "Well?"
was all he said.

Instead of answering, Ghurran held the blade to his nostrils and
sniffed lightly. Frowning, he wet a long-nailed finger at his mouth and
touched it to the blade. With even greater caution than he had shown
before, he brought the finger to his lips. Quickly he spat, scrubbing
the finger on his robes.

"Do something!" Hordo demanded.

"Poisons are something I seldom deal with," Ghurran said calmly. He
opened the wooden box hanging at his side and began to take out small
parchment packets and stone vials. "But perhaps I can do something." A
bronze mortar and pestle, no larger than a man's hand, came from the
box. "Get me a goblet of wine, and quickly."

Hordo motioned to Prytanis, who hurried out. The herbalist set to work,
dropping dried leaves and bits of powder into the mortar, grinding them
together with the pestle. Prytanis returned with a rough clay goblet
filled to the top with cheap wine. Ghurran took it and poured in the
mixture from the mortar, stirring it vigorously with his finger.

"Here," the old man said, holding the wine to Conan's mouth. "Drink."

Conan looked at the offering. A few pieces of leaf floated on the
wine's surface along with the sprinkling of varicolored powders. "This
will rid me of the poison?"

Ghurran looked at him levelly. "In the time it would take you to reach
the docks and return, you will either be able to walk from this room,
or you will be dead." The listening smugglers stirred.

"If he dies-" Hordo began threateningly, but Conan cut him off. "If I
die, it will not be Ghurran's fault, will it, Ghurran?"

"Drink," the old man said, "or it will be your own fault."

Conan drank. With the first mouthful a grimace twisted his face,
becoming worse with every swallow. As the goblet was taken from his
mouth, he gasped, "Crom! It tastes as if a camel bathed in it!" A few
of the listeners, those sober enough, laughed.

Ghurran grunted. "Do you want sweetness on the tongue, or the poison
counteracted?" His eye fell on the opened chest. Face made even more
hollow by a frown, he took some of the leaves, stirring them on his
palm with a bony finger.

"Do you know the leaf?" Conan asked. He was not sure if his breathing
was easier, or if he just imagined it so. "The man who did this told us
they were spices."

"Spices?" Ghurran said absently. "No, I do not think they are spices.
But then," he added, letting the leaves fall back into the chest, "I do
not know all plants. I would like to look in the other chests. If there
are herbs unknown to me in those also, perhaps I will take some of them
in payment."

"Look all you want," Hordo said eagerly. "Prytanis, help him open the
chests." The Nemedian and the herbalist moved toward the stacked
chests, and Hordo dropped his voice to a whisper ranged for Conan's
ears. "If he will take herbs rather than a hundred gold pieces, then
well enough, I say."

Conan drew a breath; they were coming easier. "Help me to my feet,
Hordo," he urged. "He said I would walk or die, and by Mitra's bones, I
intend to walk."

The two of them exchanged a long look; then the one-eyed man reached
down. Conan pulled himself up, putting a hand against the wall to
steady himself. Leaning against a wall would not do, though. He took a
tottering step. His bones felt ready to bend, but he forced himself to
move the other foot forward.

"It is too late for that one," Prytanis' voice came loudly from where
he stood beside the chests, dagger in hand. Three already had their
lids pried open. "I found some more of those leaves."

Ghurran let the cloak fall back over the corpse's face. "I was curious
as to the sort of man who uses a poisoned blade. But I suppose new
herbs are more important than dead men. More of the leaves, you say?"

Conan made another step, and another. The weakness was still on him,
but he felt firmer in some fashion, less like a figure made of reeds.
Hordo followed him, looking like an anxious bear. "Are you all right,
Cimmerian?"

"Right enough," Conan told him, then laughed. "But moments ago I would
have settled for living long enough to know the way of all this. Now I
begin to think I may live a bit longer than that after all."

"This body is too frail," Ghurran said suddenly. "Too old!" He knelt,
peering into one of the chests. All twenty had been opened, and some of
their contents pulled out. There were more dried leaves, exactly like
those in the first chest. There were saffron crystals that seemed, from
the powder beneath the pile of them on the dirt floor, to crumble
almost of their own weight, and tightly corded leather sacks, several
of which had been sliced open to spill out what could have been salt
except for its crimson color. Two of the chests contained clear vials
filled with a verdant liquid and well-packed in linen bags of goose
down.

"What ails you?" Conan asked. "I walk, as you said I would, and I will
see that you get the gold Hordo promised you." The one-eyed smuggler
made a muffled sound of pained protest.

"Gold," Ghurran snorted contemptuously.

"If not gold, then what?" Conan asked. "If any of the herbs or other
substances in those chests can be of use to you, take them, leaving
only a little for me. It seems we will not be delivering them to the
Zaporoska, but I still want to know why a man would try to kill to keep
them hidden. A small portion of the leaves and the rest may help me
find out."

"Yes," the herbalist said slowly, "you will want to find out, won't
you?" He hesitated. "I do not know exactly how to tell you this. If
what I gave you had not been successful, there would have been no need
to say anything. I hoped to find something in these chests, or more
likely on the body. A man who carries a poisoned weapon will betimes
also carry an antidote in case he himself is accidently wounded."

"What need is there of antidotes?" Hordo demanded. "You have already
counteracted the poison."

Ghurran hesitated again, eying both Hordo and Conan in turn. "The
treatment I have given you, northlander, has only masked the poison for
a time."

"But I feel no more than a slight ache in the head," Conan said. "In an
hour I will wrestle any man in Sultanapur."

"And you will continue to feel so for another day or two perhaps, then
the poison will take hold again. A permanent cure requires herbs that I
know, but that can be found only in Vendhya."

"Vendhya!" Hordo exclaimed. "Black Erlik's bowels and bladder!" Conan
motioned Ghurran to speak on, and the old man did so.

"You must go to Vendhya, northlander, and I must go with you, for a
daily infusion prepared by me will be necessary to keep you alive. The
journey is not one I look forward to, for this old body is not suited
to such travels. You, however, may find the answers you seek in
Vendhya."

"Mayhap I will," Conan said. "It will not be the first time my life has
been measured out a day at a time."

"But Vendhya," Hordo protested. "Conan, they do not much like folk from
this side of the Vilayet in Vendhya. If you with your accursed eyes are
thought strange here, how will they think you there? We'll lose our
heads, like as not, and be lucky if we are not flayed first. Ghurran,
are you sure there is nothing you can do here in Turan?"

"If he does not go to Vendhya," Ghurran said, "he dies."

"It is all right, my friend," Conan told the one-eyed man. "I will find
the antidote there, and answers. Why are those chests worth killing
for? Patil was Vendhyan, and I cannot think they were destined
elsewhere. Besides, you know I have to leave Sultanapur for a time
anyway, unless I want to hide from the City Guard until they find Tureg
Amal's killer."

"The chests," Hasan said abruptly. "They can still be taken to the
Zaporoska. Whoever was to meet Patil will not know he is dead. They
will be waiting there, and they may have answers to our questions. They
may even have an antidote."

" 'Tis better than Vendhya," Hordo said quickly. "For one thing, it is
closer. No need to travel to the ends of the world if we do not need
to."

"It cannot hurt to try," Conan agreed. "An easier trip for your bones,
Ghurran." The old man shrugged his thin shoulders noncommitally.

"And if Patil's friends do not have what you need," Hordo added, "then
we can think about Vendhya."

"Hold there!" Prytanis strode, into the middle of the room, glaring
angrily. The other smugglers were listening drunkenly, but he alone
seemed sober enough to truly understand what had been said. "Take the
chests to the Zaporoska, you say. How are we to find the men we seek?
The mouth of the Zaporoska is wide, with dunes and hills to hide an
army on both sides."

"When I agreed to carry Patil's goods," Hordo said, "I made sure he
told me the signals that would be given by the men ashore, and the
signs we must give in return."

"But what profit is there in it?" Prytanis insisted. "The Vendhyan
cannot pay. Do you think his companions will when we arrive without
him? I say forget these chests and find a load of 'fish' that will put
gold in our purses."

"You spineless dog." Hordo's voice was low and seemed all the more
deadly for it. "Conan is one of us and we stand together. How deep is
the rot in you? Will you now throw goods over the side at the sight of
a naval bireme, or abandon our wounded to the excisemen?"

"Call me not coward," the Nemedian snapped. "Many times I have risked
having my head put on a pike above the Strangers' Gate, as you well
know. If the Cimmerian wants to go, then let him. But do not ask the
rest of us to tease the headsman's axe just for the pleasure of the
trip."

The jagged scar down Hordo's left cheek went livid as he prepared a
blast, but Conan spoke first.

"I do not ask you to come for the pleasure of the trip, Prytanis, nor
even for the pleasure of my company. But answer me this. You say you
want gold?"

"As any man does," Prytanis said cautiously.

"These chests are worth gold to the men waiting at the Zaporoska.
Vendhyans, if Patil is a guide. You have seen other Vendhyans, men with
rings on every finger and gems on their turbans. Did you ever see a
Vendhyan without a purse full of gold?"

Prytanis' eyes widened as he suddenly realized that Conan spoke not
only to him. "But-"

The big Cimmerian went on over the attempted interruption like an
avalanche rolling over a hapless peasant. "The Vendhyans waiting on the
Zaporoska will have plenty of gold, gold due us when we deliver the
chests. And if they will not pay. . ." He grimed wolfishly and touched
the hilt of his broadsword. "They'll not be the first to try refusing
to pay for their 'fish.' But we did not let the others get away with
it, and we'll not let the Vendhyans either."

Prytanis looked as though he wanted to protest further but one of the
smugglers cried out drunkenly, "Aye! Cut 'em down and take it all!"

"Vendhyan gold for all of us!" another shouted. Others grunted
agreement or laughingly repeated the words. The slit-nosed Nemedian
sank into a scowling silence and withdrew sullenly to a corner by
himself.

"You still have the gift of making men follow you," Hordo told Conan
quietly, "but this time it would have been better to break Prytanis'
head and be done with it. He will give trouble before this is done, and
we'll have enough of that as it is. Mitra, the old man will likely
heave his stomach up at every wave. He looks no happier at the prospect
of this shorter journey than he did about traveling to Vendhya."
Indeed, Ghurran sat slumped against the chests, staring glumly at
nothing.

"I will deal with Prytanis if I must," Conan replied. "And Ghurran can
no doubt concoct something to soothe his stomach. The problem now is to
find more men." Hordo's vessel could be sailed by fewer than those in
the cellar, but the winds would not always be favorable, and rowing
against tides and currents would require twice so many at least. The
Cimmerian surveyed the men sprawled about the floor and added, "Not to
mention sobering this lot enough to walk without falling over their own
feet."

"Salted wine," Hordo said grimly. Conan winced; he had personal
experience of the one-eyed man's method of ridding a man of
drunkenness. "And you cannot risk the streets in daylight," Hordo went
on, "I will leave that part of it to you while I try to scrape some
more crew out of the taverns. Prytanis! We've work to be done!"

Conan ran his eye over the drunken smugglers once more and grimaced.
"Hasan, tell Kafar we need ten pitchers of wine. And a large sack of
salt."

The next hour was not going to be pleasant.


Chapter VI

The harbor quays were quiet once night had fallen, inhabited only by
shadows that transformed great casks of wine and bales of cloth and
coiled hawsers into looming, fearsome shapes. Scudding clouds dappled a
dull, distant moon. The seaward wind across the bay was as cold as it
had been hot during the day, and the watchmen paid by the Merchants'
Guild wrapped themselves in their cloaks and found shelter within the
waterside warehouses with warming bottles of wine.

There were no eyes to see the men who worked around a trim vessel some
sixteen paces long, with a single forward-raked mast stepped amidship.
It was tied alongside a dock that leaned alarmingly and creaked at
every step on its rough planks. But then the dock creaked whether there
were steps or not. All the boats moored there were draped with nets,
but few carried more than the faintest smell of fish. Actual fishermen
sold small portions of their catch each day for the maintaining of that
smell. King Yildiz's customs collectors would seize a fishing boat that
did not smell of fish before they even bothered to search it.

Conan stood on the rickety dock with the dark cloak he had from Ghurran
pulled about him so that he blended with the night. He was the only one
there besides Hordo who knew that the one-eyed man privately called
that boat Karela, after a woman he had not seen in two years, but
looked for still. Conan had known her, too, and understood the
smuggler's obsession.

While others loaded the ship, the Cimmerian kept an eye out for the
rare watchman who might actually be trying to earn his coin or, more
likely, for a chance patrol of the King's excisemen. A slight ache
behind his eyes was the only remaining effect of the poison he could
detect. "The old man's potion works well," he said as Hordo climbed up
beside him from the boat. "I could almost think the poison was gone
completely."

"It had better work," his friend grunted. "You had to promise him those
hundred gold pieces when he was ready to settle for herbs."

"My life is worth a hundred gold pieces to me," Conan said dryly.
Muffled cursing and thumping rose from the boat. "Hordo, did you truly
take on every blind fool you could find for this voyage?"

"We may wish we had twice as many blades before this is done. And with
half my men vanished into wine pitchers, I had to take the best of what
I could find. Or would you rather wait another day? I hear the City
Guard cut an albino into dog meat just at twilight, mistaking him for a
northlander. And they've set out to search every tavern and bordello in
the city."

"That will take them a century," Conan laughed. A soft cooing caught
his ear, and he stared in amazement as a wicker cage of doves was
lowered onto the boat, followed by another cage of chickens and three
live goats.

"One of the new men suggested it," Hordo said, "and I think it a good
idea. I get tired of choosing between dried meat and salt meat when we
are at sea."

"As long as they are not more of the crew, Hordo."

"The goats are no randier than some outlanders I know, and the-" The
bearded man cut off as a light flared on the boat below. "What in
Zandru's Nine Hells ... "

Conan did not waste time on oaths. Leaping to the deck, he snatched a
clay lamp from the hands of a tall, lanky Turanian and threw it over
the side.

The man stared at him angrily. "How am I to see where to put anything
in this dark?" He was a stranger to Conan, one of Hordo's new recruits,
in the turban and leather vest that was the ubiquitous garb of the
harbor district.

"What is your name?" the Cimmerian asked.

"I am called Shamil. Who are you?"

"Shamil," Conan said, "I will just assume you are too stupid to realize
that a lamp could also be seen by others." His voice grew harder. "I
will not even think you might be a spy for the excisemen, trying to
draw their attention. But if you do that again, I will make you eat the
lamp." Hordo appeared beside him, testing his dagger on a horny thumb.

"And after he does, I will slit your throat. You understand?" The lanky
man nodded warily.

"Blind fools, Hordo," Conan said and turned away before his friend
could speak.

The Cimmerian's earlier mirth had soured. Men such as this Shamil might
well get them all killed before they ever saw the Zaporoska. And how
many others like him were among the newcomers? Even if they were not
done in by foolishness like lighting a lamp where stealth was required,
how many of the new could be trusted did matters come to a fight on the
other side of the Vilayet?

Muttering to himself, Ghurran stumbled his way down the dark deck and
thrust a battered pewter cup into Conan's hands. "Drink this. I cannot
be sure what effect the pitching of sea travel will have. It is best to
have a double dose and be safe."

Conan took a deep breath and emptied the cup in one gulp. "It no longer
tastes of camel," he said with a grimace.

"The ingredients are slightly different," the herbalist told him. "Now
it tastes as though a sheep was dipped in it." Conan tossed the cup
back to Ghurran as Hordo joined them.

"The chests are lashed below," the smuggler said quietly, "and we are
as ready as we are likely to be. Take the tiller, Cimmerian, while I
get the men to the oars."

"See if they can keep from braining one another with them," Conan said,
but Hordo had already disappeared in the dark, whispering muted
commands.

The Cimmerian moved quickly aft, wincing at the clatter of oars as they
were laid in the thole pins. As the craft was pushed out from the dock,
he threw his weight against the thick wooden haft of the tiller,
steering the boat toward open water. The sounds of Hordo quietly
calling the stroke came over the creak of the oars. Phosphorescence
swirled around the oar blades and in the wake.

Scores of ships in all sizes were anchored in the harbor, galleys and
sailing craft from every port on the Vilayet. Conan directed a zig-zag
course that kept well clear of all of them. The navy's biremes were
berthed in the northern-most part of the bay, but some of the
merchantmen would have a man standing watch. None would raise an alarm,
however, unless the smugglers' craft came too close. The watches were
to guard against thieves or pirates-some of whom were bold enough to
enter the harbor of Sultanapur, or even Aghrapur-not to draw
unnecessary attention to ships whose captains often carried goods not
listed on the manifest.

The offshore wind carried not only the smells of the city, but picked
up the harbor's own stenches as well. The aromas of spice ships and the
stink of slavers blended with the smell of the water. Slops and offal
were tossed over the side whether a ship was at sea or in port, and the
harbor of Sultanapur was a cesspool.

The vessel cleared the last of the anchored ships, but instead of
relaxing, Conan stiffened and bit back a curse. "Hordo," he called
hoarsely. "Hordo, the mole!"

The long stone barrier of the mole protected the harbor against the
sharp, sudden storms of the Vilayet that could otherwise send waves
crashing in to smash vessels against the quays. Two wide ship channels,
separated by more than a thousand paces, were the only openings in the
great breakwater, and on either side of each channel was a tall granite
tower. The towers were not yet visible in the night and would usually
be manned only in time of war. What was visible, however, was the gleam
of torchlight through arrow slits.

Pounding a fist into his palm, Hordo slowly backed the length of the
deck, staring all the while toward the slivers of light. They became
less distant by the moment. He spoke quietly when close enough for
Conan and no other to hear. "It must be this Mitra-forsaken
assassination, Cimmerian. But if they've manned the towers . . ."

"The chains?" Conan said, and the bearded man nodded grimly. The chains
were another precaution for time of war, like the manning of the
towers. Of massive iron links capable of taking a ramming-stroke blow
from the largest trireme without breaking, they could be stretched,
almost on the surface of the water, to effectively bar the harbor
entrances even to vessels as small as the one the smugglers rode.

Conan spoke slowly, letting his thoughts form on his tongue. "There is
no reason for the towers to be manned unless the guard-chains have been
raised. In the night they are little better than useless as watch
posts. But there is no war, only the assassination." He nodded to
himself. "Hordo, the chains are not to keep ships out, but to keep them
in."

"Keep them in?"

"To try to keep the High Admiral's assassin from escaping," the
Cimmerian said impatiently. "There are no city gates here to close and
guard, only the chains."

"And if you are right, how does it aid us?" Hordo grunted sourly.
"Chains or gates, we are trapped like hares in a cage."

"In war there would be a hundred men or more in each tower. But now ...
They expect no attack, Hordo. And how many men are needed just to guard
against someone trying to loose an end of the chain? As many as to
guard a gate?"

The one-eyed man whistled tunelessly between his teeth. "A gamble,
Cimmerian," he said finally. "You propose a deadly gamble."

"I have no choice. The dice will be tossed, one way or another, and my
life is already wagered."

"As you say. But do not ask me to like it, for I do not. We will have
to try one of the towers on the part separated from land. Otherwise we
might have a few score guardsmen to contend with before our business is
done."

"Not you," Conan said. "If we both go, how long do you wager the ship
will wait for us? The new men will not outstay the old, and the old are
not overly eager for this voyage."

"They all know I would follow any man who left me, and in my own ship,"
Hordo rumbled. "Follow him to the end of the world, if need be, and rip
out his throat with my bare hands." But he took the tiller from the
Cimmerian. "See who will go with you. You cannot do it alone."

Conan moved forward to the mast and stood astride the yard on which the
sail was furled, lying fore and aft on the deck. The pace of rowing,
already ragged without Hordo to call a stroke, slowed further. Even in
the dark he knew every eye was on him.

"The trouble in the city has given us a problem," he said quietly. "The
guard-chains are up. I intend to lower one and open a way out of the
harbor for us. If it is not done, we have come this far for nothing. We
will have a few chests of spices-or so I was told they were-that only
the Vendhyans want, and the Vendhyans will keep their gold." He waited.
Gold was always a good place to end, for the word then loomed large in
the listeners' minds.

To his surprise, Hasan drew in his oar and stood silently. Ghurran
shifted and wrapped his cloak tighter about himself. No one else moved.
Conan ran his gaze down the two shadowy lines of men, and some of those
who had been with Hordo before his coming stirred uncomfortably on
their rowing benches. It would not be easy convincing them. Outright
cowards did not last long among the Brotherhood of the Coast, but
neither did those too eager to seek battle. As well to start with the
hardest to convince.

"You, Prytanis?"

The slit-nosed Nemedian's teeth showed white in what could have been a
smile or a snarl. "You want this journey, northlander? You lower the
chain then. I'd as soon be back ashore with a mug of ale in my fist and
a wench on my knee."

"A much safer place, it is true," Conan said dryly and there was a
small laugh from the others. Prytanis hunched angrily over his oar.
Shamil, pulling an oar almost by Conan's side, had made no move to
rise, but there was an air of watching and waiting about him that was
plain even in the dim-mooned night.

"What of you, lighter of lamps?" the Cimmerian asked.

"I merely waited to be asked," the lanky man answered quietly. His oar
rattled against the thole pins as it was pulled inboard.

Abruptly two men stood who had been with Hordo when Conan arrived in
Sultanapur. "I would not have you think only the newlings are with
you," said one, a Kothian named Baltis. Thick old scars were layered
where his ears had been none too expertly removed in the distant past.
The other, a hollow-faced Shemite who called himself Enam, did not
speak but simply drew his tulwar and examined the blade's edge.

"Fools," Prytanis said, but he said it softly.

Conan waved his arm in signal to Hordo, only a gray blur in the stern,
and the vessel curved toward the mole. The great breakwater reared
before them, a granite wall rising from the dark waters, more than the
height of a man, higher than the vessel's deck. Even the new men knew
enough of boats to know what was needed now. They backed water
smoothly; then those on the side next to the mole raised their oars to
fend the craft off from the stone.

The big Cimmerian wasted no time on further words. Putting a foot on
the strake, he leaped. His outstretched hands caught the top of the
mole, and he pulled himself smoothly up onto the rough granite surface.
Grunts and muttered curses announced the arrival of the others,
scrambling up beside him. There was no dearth of room, for the
breakwater was nearly twenty paces wide.

"We kill them?" Hasan asked in a low voice.

"Perhaps we'll not need to," Conan replied. "Come."

The square, stone watch-tower occupied all of the end of the mole
except for a narrow walkway around it. Its crenelated top was fifty
feet above them, and only a single heavy wooden door broke the granite
walls at the bottom. Arrow slits at the second level showed the yellow
gleam of torchlight, but there were none higher.

Motioning the others into the shadows at the base of the tower, Conan
drew his dagger and pressed himself flat against the stone wall beside
the door. Carefully gauging distance, he tossed the dagger; it
clattered on the granite two long paces from the door. For a moment he
did not think the sound had carried to those inside. Then came the
scrape of the bar being lifted. The door swung open, spilling out a
pool of light, and a helmetless guardsman stuck his head through. Conan
did not breathe but it was the dagger at the edge of the light that
caught the Turanian's eye. Frowning, he stepped out.

Conan moved like a striking falcon. One hand closed over the
guardsman's mouth. The other seized the man's sword-belt and heaved. A
splash came from below, and then cries.

"Help! Help!"

"The fool's fallen in," someone shouted inside, and in a clatter of
booted feet, four more guardsmen rushed from the tower.

Without helmets, one carrying a wooded mug, it was clear they had no
presentiment of danger. They skidded to a halt as they became aware of
the young giant before them, and hands darted for sword-hilts, but it
was too late. A nose crunched under Conan's fist, and even as that man
crumpled, another blow took one of his companions in the jaw. The two
fell almost one atop the other.

The rest were down as well, Conan saw, and no weapons had been drawn.
"Throw their swords in the harbor," he ordered, retrieving his dagger,
"and bind them." The cries for help still rose from the water, louder
now, and more frantic. "Then make a rope of their belts and tunics, and
haul that fool out before he wakes the entire city."

Sword in hand, he cautiously entered the tower. The lowest level was
one large room lit by torches, with stone stairs against one wall,
leading up. Almost the entire chamber was taken up by a monstrous
windlass linked to a complex arrangement of great bronze gears that
shone from the fresh grease on them. A long bar ran from the smallest
gear to a bronze wheel mounted on the wall below the stairs. Massive
iron chain was layered on the windlass drum, the metal of each round
link as thick as a man's arm, and unrusted. It was said the ancient
Turanian king who commanded that chain to be made had offered the
weight in rubies of any smith who could produce iron that would not
rust. It was said he had paid it, too, including the weight of the
hands and tongue he took from the smith so the secret would not be
gained by others.

From the windlass the chain led into a narrow, round hole in the stone
floor. Conan ignored that, examining the gears for the means of loosing
the chain. One bronze wedge seemed to be all that kept the gears from
turning.

"Look out!"

At the shout Conan spun, broadsword leaping into his hand. Toppling
from the stairs, a guardsman thudded to the stones at the Cimmerian's
feet. A dagger hilt stood out from his chest and a still-drawn crossbow
lay by his outstretched hand.

"He aimed at your back," Hasan said from the door.

"I will repay the debt," Conan said, sheathing his blade.

Quickly the Cimmerian worked the wedge free, tossed it aside, and then
threw his weight against the bar. It could as well have been set in
stone. By the length of the thick metal rod, five men at least were
meant to work the windlass. Thick muscles knotted with effort, and the
bar moved, slowly at first, then faster. Much more slowly the windlass
turned, and huge links rattled into the hole in the floor. Conan
strained to rotate the device faster. Suddenly Hasan was there beside
him, adding more strength than his bony height suggested.

Baltis stuck his head in at the door. "The chain is below the water as
far out as I can see, Cimmerian. And there is stirring on the far side
of the channel. They must have heard the shouting for help."

Reluctantly Conan released the bar. A boat would be sent to
investigate, and though it would not likely carry many men, the purpose
was escape, not a fight. "Our craft draws little water," he said. "It
will have to do."

As the three men hurried from the tower, Shamil and Enam straightened
from laying the fifth guardsman, bound and gagged with strips torn from
his own sopping-wet tunic, in a row with the four who were still
unconscious. Without a word they followed Conan onto the narrow walkway
that led around the tower. Hordo's one eye, the Cimmerian knew, was as
sharp as Baltis's two. And the bearlike man would not waste precious
moments.

Before they even reached the channel side of the tower, the soft creak
and splash of oars was approaching. The vessel arrived at the same
instant they did, backing water as it swung close to the breakwater.
"Jump," Conan commanded.

Waiting only to hear each man thump safely on deck, he leaped after
them. He landed with knees flexed, yet staggered and had to catch hold
of the mast to keep from falling. His head spun until it seemed as
though the ship were pitching in a storm. Jaw clenched, he fought to
remain upright.

Ghurran shuffled out of the darkness and peered at the Cimmerian. "Too
much exertion brings out the poison," he said. "You must rest, for
there is a limit to how much of the potion I can give you in one day."

"I will find the man responsible," Conan said through gritted teeth.
"Even if there is no antidote, I will find him and kill him."

From the stern came Hordo's hoarse command. "Stroke! Erlik take the lot
of you, stroke!"

Oars working, the slim craft crawled away from Sultanapur like a
waterbug skittering over black water.

With a roar Naipal bolted upright on his huge round bed, staring
fixedly into the darkness. Moonlight filtered into the chamber through
gossamer hangings at arched windows, creating dim shadows. The two
women who shared his bed-one Vendhyan, one Khitan, each sweetly rounded
and unclothed-cowered away from him among the silken coverlets in
fright at the yell. They were his favorites from his purdhana, skilled,
passionate and eager to please, yet he did not so much as glance at
them.

With the tips of his fingers he massaged his temples, trying to
remember what it was that had wakened him. From a narrow golden chain
about his neck a black opal dangled against his sweat-damp chest. Never
was he without it, for that opal was the sole means by which Masrok
could signal obedience or ask to be summoned. Now, however, it lay dark
and cool against his skin. A dream, he decided. A dream of great
portent to affect him so, but portent of what? Obviously it had come as
a warning of some ... Warning."

"Katar's teats!" he snapped, and the women cowered from him even
farther.

Summoning servants would take too much time. He scrambled from the bed,
still ignoring the now-whimpering women. They had many delightful uses,
but none now. Hastily he donned his robes, a task he had not performed
unaided for years. The narrow golden coffer stood on a table inlaid
with turquoise and lapis lazuli. He reached for it, hesitated-no need
now to summon Masrok; no need to threaten-then left the coffer and ran.

Desperate wondering filled his mind. What danger could threaten him
now? Masrok shielded the eyes of the Black Seers of Yimsha. Zail Bal,
the former court wizard and the one man he had ever truly feared, was
dead, carried off by demons. If Bhandarkar divined his intent, he might
summon other mages to oppose him, but he, Naipal, had men close to the
throne, men the King did not know of. He knew what woman Bhandarkar had
chosen for the night even before she reached the royal bedchamber. What
could it be, What?

The darkness of the high-domed chamber far below the palace was
lessened by an unearthly glow from the silver pattern in the floor.
Naipal darted to the table where his sorcerous implements were laid
out, crystal flasks and beakers, vials that gave off eerie light and
others that seemed to draw darkness. His fingers itched to reach for
the ebony chest, for the power of the khorassani, but he forced himself
to lift the lid of the ornately carved ivory box instead. With shaking
hands he thrust back the silken coverings.

A harsh breath rasped in his throat like a death rattle. A shadowed
image floated on the polished surface, silvery no more. Reflected there
was a small ship on a night-shrouded sea, a vessel with a single
forward-raked mast, making its way by the rhythmic sweep of oars.

Strange devices of crystal and bone trembled as his fist pounded on the
table. As it was meant to, the mirror showed him the source of his
danger, yet he cursed its limits. What was the danger here? Across what
sea did it come? There were seas to the south and far to the east was
the Endless Ocean, said by some to end only at the brink of the world.
To the west lay the Vilayet and even farther the great Western Sea. At
least Mount Yimsha had been recognizable.

He ground his teeth, knowing it was to keep them from chattering and
hating the fact. Like an inky cloud, terror coiled its tendrils around
his soul. He had thought himself long beyond such, but now he knew that
the years with the mirror standing watch had softened him. He had
plotted and acted without fear, thinking he had conquered fear because
the emptiness of the mirror had told him his plans were unthreatened.
And now this ship! A tiny speck on the waters, by all the gods!

With tremendous effort he forced his features back to their normal
outward calm. Forcefully he reminded himself that panic availed
nothing. Less than nothing, for it hindered action. He had agents in
many places and the means to communicate orders to them more swiftly
than flights of eagles. His eyes marked the craft well and fingers that
shook only slightly moved among the arcane implements on the table.
From whatever direction that vessel came, on whatever shore it landed,
there would be men to recognize it. Long before it ever reached him,
the danger would be purged as though with fire.


Chapter VII

With his feet planted wide against the rise and fall of the deck and
one hand on the stay supporting the mast, Conan peered through the
night toward the blackness that was the eastern shore of the Vilayet.
The vessel ran as close inshore as its shallow draft would allow. Not
far to the west were islands of which the most pleasant thing said was
that they were the lair of pirates. Other things were said as well,
whispered in dark corners, but whatever lurked there, no one wanted to
draw its attention.

The Cimmerian shared his vigil in the bow with only the two remaining
goats and the wicker cage of pigeons. The chickens had gone the way of
the other goat, into the smugglers' stomachs. Most of the crew were
sprawled on the deck, heads pillowed on arms or coils of rope. Clouds
covered the moon, and only through brief rents was there even a slight
lessening of the darkness. The triangular sail was fullbellied with
wind, and the rush of water along the hull competed with the occasional
snore. But then, he thought, none of them had his reasons for eagerness
to be ashore, to find the men for whom the chests below were bound.
Keen as his eye was, however, he could make out no details of the land.
Worse, there was no sign of the signals Hordo had told him of.

"They must be here," he muttered to himself.

"But will they have the antidote?" Ghurran asked, handing Conan the
goblet that had become a nightly ritual.

Conan avoided looking at the muddy liquid in the battered pewter cup.
It did not grow to look more appetizing with repeated viewing.

"They will have it." Holding his breath, he emptied the goblet, trying
to pour the mixture down his throat rather than let it touch his
tongue. "But if they do not?" the old man persisted. "There seems not
even to be anyone there."

The Cimmerian's grimace from the taste of the potion turned to a smile.
"They are there." He pointed to three pinpricks of light that had just
sprung into being in the blackness of the shoreline on the southern
headland of the river mouth. "And they will have the antidote."

The herbalist trailed after him as he made his way down the deck. Hordo
was kneeling beside a large, open chest of iron-bound oak that was
lashed to the mast.

"I saw," the one-eyed man muttered when the Cimmerian appeared. "Now to
see if they are the ones we seek." In short order he had assembled a
peculiar-looking apparatus, three hooded brass lamps fastened to a long
pole. There were hooks for attaching more of the lamps if need be, and
pegs for crosspieces if other configurations were desired. This was a
not-unusual method of signaling among the smugglers.

Once the lamps were alight, Hordo raised the pole high. Those few of
the crew not asleep stood to watch. Ashore, the center light of the
three disappeared as though suddenly extinguished. Thrice the bearded
smuggler lowered and raised the pole of lamps.

The remaining lights ashore vanished and, with a grunt, Hordo lowered
the pole and put out his own lamps. Almost with the breath that
extinguished the last flame, he was roaring. "Up, you mangy curs! On
your feet, you misbegotten camel spawn! Erlik blast your tainted souls,
move!" The ship became an anthill as men lurched out of sleep, some
aided by a boot from the one-eyed man.

Conan strode to the tiller and found Shamil manning it. He motioned the
lanky newcomer aside and took his place. The lower edge of the sail was
just high enough for him to watch the coastline ahead.

"What has happened?" Ghurran demanded. "Were the signals wrong? Are we
to land or not?"

"It is a matter of trust," Conan explained without looking away from
his task. "The men ashore see a ship, but is it the smuggler they
expect? Signals are exchanged, but not with the place of landing. If a
shipload of excisemen or pirates lands at the signal lights, they'd
find no more than a single man, and that only if he is slow or stupid."
Another tiny point of light appeared on the coast, separated from the
location of the others by almost a league. "And if we had not given the
proper signals in return," the Cimmerian went on, "that would not now
be showing us where to come ashore."

Ghurran peered at the bustle among the smugglers. Some eased tulwars
and daggers in their sheaths. Others loosed the strings of oilskin bags
to check bowstrings and arrow fletchings. "And you trust them as much
as they trust you," he said.

"Less," Conan grinned. "Even if those ashore haven't tortured the
signals out of the men we are truly here to meet, they could still want
what we have without the bother of paying for it."

"I had no idea this could be so dangerous." The herbalist's voice was
faint.

"Who lives without danger does not live at all," Conan quoted an old
Cimmerian proverb. "Did you think to journey all the way to Vendhya by
magic? I can think of no other way to travel so far without danger."

Ghurran did not reply, and Conan turned his whole attention to the
matter at hand. The wind carried them swiftly toward the waiting light,
but a landing on a night shore was not made under sail. To the creaking
of halyards in the blocks, the long yard was lowered and swung fore and
aft on the deck, a few hasty lashings being made to keep the sail from
billowing across the deck and hindering movement. Men moved to the
rowing benches. The rasp of oarshafts on thole-pins, the slow swirl of
blades dipping into the black water, and, incongruously, cooing from
the cage of pigeons became the only sounds of the vessel.

Conan swung the tiller, and the smugglers' craft turned toward land and
the guiding point of light. The vessel began to pitch with the swells
rolling to shore, and the faint thrash of breakers drifted to his ear.
That there was a safe beach ahead he did not doubt. Even excisemen
wanted a smuggler's cargo undamaged for the portion of its value that
was theirs in reward. Of what came after the prow had touched shore,
however, there was always doubt.

Sand grated under the keel and without the need of orders, every man
backed water. To be too firmly aground could mean death. A splash came
from the bow as Hordo tossed a stone anchor over the side. It would
help hold the lightly beached craft against the tide, but the rope
could be cut in an instant.

Even as the shudder of grounding ran through the craft, Conan joined
the one-eyed man in the bow. The point of light that had brought them
ashore was gone. Varying shades of darkness suggested high dunes and
perhaps stunted trees.

Abruptly a click as of stone striking metal came from the beach. Almost
directly before them a fire flared, a large fire, some thirty-odd paces
from the water. A lone man stood beside the fire, hands outspread to
show they were empty. His features could not be seen, but the turban on
his head was large, like those favored by Vendhyans.

"We'll discover no more by looking," Conan said and jumped over the
side. He landed to his calves in water and more splashed over him as
Hordo landed.

The bearded man caught his arm. "Let me do the talking, Cimmerian.
You've never been able to lie well, except to women. The truth may
serve us here, but it must be used properly."

Conan nodded, and they moved up the beach together.

The waiting man was indeed a Vendhyan, with swarthy skin and a narrow
nose. A large sapphire and a spray of pale plumes adorned his turban
and a ring with a polished stone was on every finger. Rich brocades and
silks made up his garments, though there were stout riding boots on his
feet. His dark, deep-set eyes went past them to the boat. "Where is
Patil?" he said in badly accented Hyrkanian. His tone was flat and
unreadable.

"Patil left Sultanapur before us," Hordo replied, "and bv a different
way. He did not tell me his route, as you may understand."

"He was to come with you."

Hordo shrugged. "The High Admiral of Turan was slain, you see, and it
was said the deed was done by a Vendhyan. The streets of Sultanapur are
likely still not safe for one of your country."

The truth, Conan thought. Even, word the truth, but handled, as Hordo
would put it, properly.

A frown creased the Vendhyan's brow, though he nodded slowly. "Very
well. You may call me Lord Sabah."

"You may call me King Yildiz if you need names," Hordo said.

The Vendhyan's face tightened. "Of course. You have the ... goods,
Yildiz?"

"You have the gold? Patil spoke of a great deal of gold."

"The gold is here," Sabah said impatiently. "What of the chests, O King
of Turan?"

Hordo raised his right hand above his head, and from the vessel came
the grate of the hatch being pushed back. "Let your men come on foot
for them," he cautioned, "and no more than four at a time. And I will
see the gold before a chest is taken."

Six of the smugglers appeared on the edge of the firelight, bows in
hand and arrows nocked. The Vendhyan looked at them levelly, then bowed
to Hordo with a dry smile. "It shall be as you wish, of course."
Backing around the fire, he faded into the darkness up the beach.

"I mistrust him," Conan said as soon as he was gone.

"Why?" Hordo asked.

"He accepted the tale of Patil too easily. Would you not have asked at
least a few more questions if you were he?"

The one-eyed man shook his shaggy head. "Perhaps. But keep your eyes
open, and we will get out of this with whole skins whatever he
intends."

A dark band of wet about the bottom of his robes, Ghurran puffed up the
sandy shelf. "This mode of travel is uncomfortable, inconvenient and
damp," he muttered, holding his bony hands out to the fire. "Have you
spoken to that man about the antidote, Cimmerian?"

"Not yet."

"Do not. Hear me out," he went on when Conan opened his mouth. "They
will be nervous of a man like you with a sword on his hip. And what
reason would you give for asking? I have one, you see." To Conan's
surprise, the herbalist produce Patil's push-dagger from his sleeve. "I
purchased the weapon from Patil, but he said he had none of the
antidote. If you said such a thing, they would assume you took the
blade from his body. If I say it ... well, they would sooner believe I
had bedded one of their daughters than that these old arms had slain a
man." He hastily made the small dagger disappear as Sabah walked into
the circle of light.

Two obvious servants followed the Vendhyan, turbaned men in
dull-colored cotton, without rings or gems. One carried a dark woolen
blanket that he spread beside the fire at Sabah's gesture. The other
bore a leather sack, which he upended over the blanket. A cascade of
golden coins tumbled to the blanket, bouncing and ringing against each
other till a hundred gleaming roundels lay in a scattered heap.

Conan stared in amazement. It was far from the first time he had seen
so much gold in one place, but never before offered so casually. If
those chests had been filled with saffron, they would not be worth so
much. "What is in the chests?" he asked.

The Vendhyan's smile touched only his lips. "Spices."

The tension was broken by Hordo bending to scoop up five of the coins
at random. He examined them closely, finally biting each before tossing
it back to the blanket. "I will want the sack as well," he said, then
shouted over his shoulder, "Bring up the chests!"

Half a score of smugglers appeared from the direction of the ship, each
bearing one of the small chests. Hordo motioned, and they set their
burdens down off to one side of the fire, then trotted back toward the
water. Without a word, Sabah hurried to the chests, the servants at his
heels, and two more men ran down the beach to join them. Conan saw
Ghurran there as well, but he could not tell if the old man was
speaking to anyone. Dropping to his knees, Hordo stuffed coins into the
leather sack as fast as he could.

Abruptly a cry of rage rose from the men around the chests. Smugglers
coming up the beach with the second load of chests froze where they
stood. Conan's hand went to his sword-hilt as Sabah all but hurled
himself back into the firelight.

"The seals!" the Vendhyan howled. "They have been broken and resealed!"

Hordo's hand twitched as though he wanted to drop the last coins he
held and reach for a weapon. "Patil did it on the day he left," he said
hastily. "I do not know why. Check the chests and you will see that we
have taken nothing."

The Vendhyan's fists clenched and unclenched, and his eyes darted in
furious uncertainty. "Very well," he rasped at last. "Very well. But I
will examine each chest." His hands still worked convulsively as he
stalked away.

"You were right, Cimmerian," Hordo said. "He should not have accepted
that so easily."

"I am glad you agree," Conan said dryly. "Now, have you considered that
this fire makes us targets a child could hit?"

"I have." The one-eyed man jerked the drawstrings of the sack closed
and knotted them to his belt. "Let us get everyone back aboard as
quickly as possible."

Sabah was gone, Conan saw, as well as the first ten chests. Turbaned
men waited warily for the rest. Ten, not the agreed-upon four, but the
Cimmerian was not about to argue the point now. Ghurran was with them,
and talking, by his gestures. Conan hoped the herbalist had found what
they sought. There was certainly no more time for looking.

With seeming casualness, Conan drifted to the line of smugglers who
still waited well down toward the water. Beyond them some of the
archers had half-drawn their bows, but all still held their weapons
down.

"What was that shouting," Prytanis demanded.

"Trouble," Conan replied. "But I do not think they will attack until
those chests are safely off the beach. Not unless they decide we are
suspicious. So take the chests on up, then get back aboard as fast as
you can without running. And bring Ghurran."

"And you go back to the ship now?" Prytanis sneered. A ripple of
uneasiness ran through the others.

It was an effort for Conan to keep the anger out of his voice. "I stand
right here until you get back, as if we trust them like brothers. They
are getting impatient, Prytanis. Or do you not want a chance to leave
this beach without fighting?"

The Nemedian still hesitated, but another man pushed by him, then
another. With a last glare at the big Cimmerian, Prytanis fell in with
the file.

Crossing his arms across his chest, Conan tried to give the image of a
man at ease, all the while scanning the beach for the attack he was
sure must come. The file of smugglers met the clustered Vendhyans, the
chests changed hands, and the two groups parted, walking swiftly in
opposite directions. The smugglers had the shorter distance to go. Even
as the thought came to Conan, one of the Vendhyans looked back, then
said something to his fellows, and they all broke into a run made
awkward by the chests they carried.

"Run!" Conan shouted to the smugglers, and for once they obeyed with
alacrity, two of them dragging Ghurran between them. A rhythmic
pounding came to him as he drew his sword, and he stifled a curse to
shout to the archers. "War horsemen!"

The archers had only time to raise their bows before half a score of
mounted men in turbaned helmets and brigantine hauberks galloped out of
the dunes with lowered lances. Bowstrings slapped against leather
bracers, and five saddles were emptied. The others, one swaying, jerked
at their reins and let the charge carry them back into the dark. There
were bowmen among the Vendhyans as well, but their target was not men.
Flaming arrows arched into the night to fall around the ship. Some
hissed into the sea, but others struck wood.

Then Conan had time to worry neither about the ship nor about anyone
else. Two horsemen pounded out of the night, bent low in their saddles,
seeming to race shoulder to shoulder to see which would lance him
first. Snarling, he leaped to the side, away from the long-bladed
lances. The two riders tried to wheel on him together, but he closed
with them, thrusting at the closer of them. His blade struck a metal
plate in quilted brigantine, then slid off and between the plates. The
movements of his attack were continuous. Even as his steel pierced ribs
and heart, he was scrambling onto the dying man's horse, throwing both
the corpse and himself against the second enemy.

The second Vendhyan's eyes bulged with disbelief behind the nasal of
his turbaned helmet; he dropped the lance and struggled to reach his
tulwar. Conan grappled the live man with one hand while trying to pull
his broadsword from the dead one with the other, and the two horses,
joined by three linked bodies, danced wildly on the sand. In the same
instant, Conan's blade and the Vendhyan's came free. The dark-eyed man
desperately raised his weapon to slash. Conan twisted and all three men
fell. As they slammed into the ground, the Cimmerian sliced his sword
across a dark neck as though he were wielding a dagger and rose from
two corpses.

The horses' pavane had carried him well down the beach, and what he saw
as he looked back did not appear good. Bodies dotted the sand, though
he could not make out how many were smugglers, and neither a standing
man nor a mounted one was to be seen. Worse, the stern of the ship was
a bonfire. As he watched, a man with a bucket silhouetted himself
against the flames. Almost as soon as he appeared, the man dropped the
bucket, tried to claw at his back with both hands and toppled into the
fire. Not Hordo, Conan thought. The one-eyed man was too smart to do
something like that with bowmen about.

The fire had lessened the darkness on the beach considerably, Conan
realized. He was not so well lit as the man on the boat but neither
could he consider himself shielded by the night from the Vendhyan
archers. It was always better to be the hunter than the hunted, and the
Easterners were not to be found by staying where he was.

Bent almost double, he ran for the dunes ... and threw himself flat
against a slope of sand as nearly a score of riders appeared above him.
This, he thought sourly, was a few more than he had hoped to find at
once. He was considering whether or not he could slip away unnoticed
when the Vendhyans began talking.

"Are the chests on the pack animals?" a harsh, rasping voice demanded.

"They are."

"And where is Sabah?"

"Dead. He wanted to take the one-eyed man alive to see what he said
about the seals under hot irons. The smuggler drowned him in the surf
and escaped."

Conan smiled at that, at both parts of it.

"Good riddance," the harsh voice snapped. "I said from the start that
we should come down on them as soon as the chests were in sight. Sabah
always had to complicate matters. I think he was beginning to believe
he really was a lord, with his secrets and his plottings."

"No matter. Sabah is dead, and we will soon hunt down the rest of the
vermin."

"You propose to wait that long?" the harsh voice said. "How long do you
think the caravan will wait?"

"But Sabah said we must kill all of them. And there is the gold."

"You think of a dead man's orders and a hundred gold pieces?" the harsh
voice sneered. "Think instead of our reception if those chests fail to
reach Ayodhya safely. Better we all join Sabah now than that." The
silence was palpable. Conan could almost feel agreement radiating from
the listeners. As if no further words were necessary, the Vendhyans
reined their mounts around and galloped into the dark. Moments later
Conan heard other hooves joining these, and all receded to the south.

There was much in what the Cimmerian had heard for him to consider. For
one thing, the accursed chests seemed to take on greater importance
every time someone spoke of them. For the moment, though, there were
more immediate matters to be concerned with.

Half of the boat was burning by the time he reached it. In the light of
the fire, Hordo and three others, waist-deep in the surf with buckets,
were picked out clearly as they desperately threw water on the flames
and watched the shore with equal desperation.

"The Vendhyans are gone!" Conan shouted. Grabbing the strake, he
vaulted to the deck. Rivulets of fire ran forward along the sail. "It
is too late for that, Hordo!"

"Erlik blast you!" the one-eyed man howled. "This is my ship!" One of
the goats was dead, an arrow through its throat. Food might be in short
supply, Conan thought, and tossed the carcass toward the beach. The
live goat followed, almost dropping on Hordo's head. "My ship!" the
one-eyed man growled. "Karela!"

"There will be another." Conan lowered the cage of fluttering pigeons
and met Hordo's glare over it. "There will be another, my friend, but
this one is done."

With a groan, Hordo took the wicker cage. "Get off, Cimmerian, before
you burn, too."

Instead, Conan began seizing everything he found loose and not
burning-coils of rope, water bags, bundles of personal possessions and
hurled them shoreward. They were stranded in a strange land, which
meant it was best to assume a hostile land, and all they would have by
way of supplies was what was saved from the flames. The heat became
blistering hot as the fire crept closer. Pitch caulking bubbled and fed
the conflagration, giving off foul black smoke. Only when there was
nothing left unburning within his grasp, however, did Conan leap from
the fiery craft.

Splashing to shore, he sank coughing to his knees. After a time he
became aware of Ghurran standing over him. The herbalist's
parchment-skinned hands clutched a leather bag with a long strap.

"I regret," Ghurran said quietly, "that none of the Vendhyans had the
antidote you seek. Though as they apparently planned to slay us, it may
be they lied. I will search their dead in any case. You may be assured,
however, that I have what is needed to keep you alive until we reach
Vendhya."

Conan ran his eyes over the beach. Dead and wounded dotted the sand. A
handful of smugglers were tottering hesitantly out of the dark. Behind
him the boat was a pyre.

"Until we reach Vendhya," he said bleakly.

As the last flames flickered out on the ruin of the smugglers' craft,
Jelal slipped away into the dunes, a coarse-woven bag under his arm.
The others were too tired to take notice, he knew, so long as he was
quick.

By touch he found dead twigs on the stunted trees scattered in the low
hills of sand, and in a spot well sheltered from the beach, he built a
tiny fire. Flint and steel went back into his pouch, and other things
came out. A small brass bottle, tightly capped. A short length of goose
quill. Strips of parchment, scraped thin. As rapidly as he could
without tearing the parchment, he wrote.

My Lord, by chance I have perhaps stumbled on to a path to the answers
you seek. To believe otherwise is to believe in too great a
coincidence. I have no answers as yet, only more questions. As you
fear, the path leads to Vendhya, and I will follow it there.

Something rustled in the night, and Jelal hastily pushed a handful of
sand over the tiny fire, quenching the light. A faint aroma of burned
wood lingered in the air but that could easily be mistaken for the
smell of the charred remains of the ship. For a long moment he
listened, holding his breath. Nothing. But there was no reason to take
chances at this point. Signing the message by feel, he stowed his
paraphernalia and rolled the strip of parchment into a thin tube.

From the coarse-woven sack he took a pigeon. It had been sheer luck,
getting the birds brought along, and greater luck that they were not
all eaten. Deftly he tied the parchment tube to the pigeon's leg, then
tossed the bird aloft. In a flutter of wings it was gone, carrying all
he was really sure of thus far to Lord Khalid in Sultanapur. It was
little enough, he knew. But if the indications he had seen so far grew
much stronger, he vowed to see that this Conan and this Hordo returned
to a Turan ready to put their heads on pikes.


Chapter VIII

Dawn south of the Zaporoska was gray and dull, for heavy clouds
filtered the light of the rising sun to lifelessness. From where he
crouched in the dunes behind a twisted scrub oak, Conan watched the
Bhalkhana stallion cropping scattered tufts of tough grass and wondered
if the animal had settled enough for another try. The tall black's
high-pommeled saddle was worked with silver studs and a fringe of red
silk dangled from the reins.

Carefully the Cimmerian straightened. The horse flicked an ear but
munched in seeming unconcern at another clump of grass. Sand crunched
underfoot as Conan approached with slow steps. His hand touched the
reins ... and the stallion seemed to explode.

Fingers tangled in the bridle, Conan was jerked into the air as the
ebon animal reared. Like a cat he twisted, throwing his legs around the
horse's neck, clutching its mane with his free hand. The stallion
dropped, and the added weight of the man pulled it to its knees.
Scrambling back to its feet, the horse shook its head furiously. With
wild snorts and whinnies, the animal leaped and plunged but Conan clung
tenaciously. And as he knew it must, his presence in such an
unaccustomed place began to take a toll. The leaps became shorter, the
rearings farther apart. Then the stallion was still, nostrils flared
and blowing hard.

The animal was not beaten, Conan knew. He was all but staring it in the
eye, and that eye was filled with spirit. The question was whether or
not it had decided to accept a strange rider. He knew better than to
let go of the beast. With infinite caution he pulled himself onto its
back, then lifted himself over the high pommel and into the saddle. The
stallion only shifted as he took up the red-fringed reins. Finally
letting himself relax, Conan patted the glossy arched neck and gently
kneed the animal into a trot toward the beach.

The charred ribs of the smugglers' craft, awash in the frothy surf, yet
with tendrils of gray smoke still rising, spoke eloquently of the
previous night's attack. Some three hundred paces to the north, gray
kites screamed and circled above the dunes as they contended with the
larger vultures for the pickings below. No one among the smugglers had
considered digging graves for the Vendhyan dead, not after digging
three for their own.

The situation on the beach had changed since Conan's leave-taking that
morning. Then the smugglers had been gathered around the fire, where
the last of the arrow-slain goat still decorated a spit. Now they were
in three well-separated knots. The seven survivors of those who had
previously sailed with Hordo formed one group, huddled and muttering
among themselves, while the men who had joined on the night they left
Sultanapur made a second group. All were bedraggled and sooty-faced,
and many sported bandages.

The third group consisted of Hordo and Ghurran, standing by the eight
Vendhyan horses the smugglers had spent the morning gathering. Hordo
glared indiscriminately at newcomers and oldsters alike, while the
herbalist looked as though he wished he knew the location of a soft
bed.

As Conan swung down from his saddle beside Hordo, Prytanis limped from
the cluster of old crew members.

"Nine horses," the Nemedian announced. His tone was loud and ranting
but directed only to his six fellows. "Nine horses for three and twenty
men."

The newer men stirred uneasily, for the numbers were plain when
considered the way Prytanis obviously intended. If they were left out
of the calculation, there were horses to go around.

"What happened to his foot?" Conan said softly.

Hordo snorted. "He tried to catch a horse, and it stepped on him. The
horse got away."

"Look at us," Prytanis shouted, spinning to face Conan and Hordo. "We
came for gold, at your urging, and here we stand, our boat in ashes,
three of our number dead, and the width of the Vilayet between us and
Sultanapur."

"We came for gold and we have it," Hordo shouted back. He slapped the
bulging sack tied at his wide belt; the clinking weight of it pulled
the belt halfway down his hip. "As for the dead, a man who joins the
Brotherhood of the Coast expecting no danger would do better to become
a real fisherman. Or have you forgotten other times we have had to bury
comrades?"

The Nemedian seemed taken aback at the reminder that the gold was still
with them. It would be difficult to work up much opposition to Hordo
among the smugglers as long as the one-eyed man had gold to hand out.
Mouth working, Prytanis cast his eyes about angrily until they landed
on Ghurran. "The old man is to blame," he cried. "I saw him among the
Vendhyans, talking to them. What did he say to stir them up against
us?"

"Fool!" Ghurran spat, and the coldness of that bony face was startling.
"Why should I bring them down on us? A sword can split my head as
easily as yours, and my desire to live is easily as great as yours. You
are a fool, Nemedian, and you rant your foolishness because seeking to
blame others for your troubles is easier than seeking solutions to
those troubles."

Every man there stared at the unexpected outburst, Prytanis the hardest
of all. Face pale with rage, the Nemedian stretched, a clawed hand
toward the scrawny old man, who stared at him disdainfully.

Conan drew his sword, not threatening anyone, just letting it hang at
his side. Prytanis' hand stopped short of the herbalist's coarse brown
robes. "If you have something to say," Conan said calmly, "then say it.
Touch him, though, and I will cut your head off." The Nemedian jerked
his hand back and muttered something under his breath. "Louder," Conan
said. "Let everyone hear."

Prytanis took a deep breath. "How are nine horses going to carry three
and twenty men back to Sultanapur?"

"They are not," Conan said. "One horse goes to Vendhya with me, and
another for Ghurran."

"A horse each for the two of you, while the rest of us-" The Nemedian
took a step back as Conan raised his blade.

"If you want the horses badly enough," Conan said grimly, "then take
them. Myself, I want the animals very much indeed."

Prytanis' hand moved slowly in the direction of his sword, but his eyes
shifted as though he wished he could gauge the support of those behind
him without being so obvious as looking over his shoulder.

"Four horses go to Vendhya," Hordo said quickly. "At least. I will ride
one, and we will need one for supplies. Anyone else going with us gets
a horse, as well, for we have the longer way to go, and the harder.
What are left over go to those returning to Sultanapur. I'll give each
man his share of the Vendhyan gold before we part. That should buy all
the horses you need before you reach Khawarism-"

"Khawarism!" Prytanis exclaimed.

"-Perhaps sooner," Hordo went on as though there had been no
interruption. "There should be caravans in the passes of the
Colchians." The Nemedian seemed ready for further argument, but Baltis
pushed by him.

"That is fair enough, Hordo," the earless man said. "I speak for the
others as well. At least for those of us who have been with you before.
It is only Prytanis here who wants all this crying and pulling of hair.
As for Enam and myself, we have it in mind to go with you."

"Aye," the cadaverous Shemite agreed. His voice matched his face.
"Prytanis can go his own way and take his wailing with him. Straight to
Zandru's Ninth Hell for all I care."

The other group, the newcomers, had been stirring and murmuring among
themselves all this time. Now Hasan growled, "Enough!" at his fellows
and moved away from them. "I want to go with you, too," he said to
Hordo. "I will likely never get another chance to see Vendhya."

Shamil was almost on Hasan's heels. "I, also, should like to see
Vendhya. I joined you for gold and adventure, and there seems little of
either in trudging back to Sultanapur. In Vendhya, though ... well, we
have all heard that in Vendhya even beggars wear gold. Perhaps," he
laughed, "some of it will stick to my fingers."

None of the rest of the newlings seemed tempted by tales of Vendhyan
wealth and when it came to them that but a single horse was left for
those returning to Sultanapur, they lapsed into glum silence, slumping
like half-empty sacks on the sand. The experienced smugglers were
already seeing to their boots and sandals for the long walk around the
Vilayet.

Prytanis seemed stunned by the turn of events. He glared about him at
the men, at the ruins of the ship, at the horses, then sighed heavily.
"Very well then. I will go as well, Hordo."

Conan opened his mouth to refuse the Nemedian but Hordo rushed in.

"And welcome, Prytanis. You are a good man in tight places. The rest of
you see to dividing the supplies. The sooner we travel, the sooner we
all reach our destinations. You come with me, Cimmerian. We have plans
to make."

Conan let himself be drawn away from the others, but as soon as they
were out of earshot, he spoke. "You were right in Sultanapur. I should
have broken his head or slit his throat. All he wants is that last
horse to himself instead of having to share it. And mayhap a chance to
steal the rest of the gold."

"No doubt you speak the truth," Hordo replied. "At least about the
horse. But credit me with the one eye I have. While you and Prytanis
stared at each other, I was watching the newlings."

"What do they have to do with the Nemedian? I doubt they trust him as
much as I do."

"Less, of a certainty. But they are none too sure of setting out afoot
either. It would not take much spark-say you and Prytanis attempting to
slay each other-for half of them to try for the horses. Then instead of
going to Vendhya, we can all kill each other on this Mitra-forsaken bit
of coast."

Conan shook his head ruefully. "You see a great deal with that one eye,
my old friend. Karela would be proud of you."

The bearded man scrubbed at his nose and sniffed. "Perhaps she would.
Come. They will be wanting their gold and likely thinking they should
have twice as much."

The gold-three pieces laid in each man's calloused palm-caused no
squabble at all, though there were a few sharp looks at the leather bag
Hordo tied to his sword-belt. The way it tugged the broad belt down
less was clear the proof that he had shared out most of the contents.
The division of the supplies was the source of greater friction.

Conan was surprised at how many arguments could arise over dried fruit
ruined by heat and immersion, or coils of rope for which no one could
think of any use at present. Eventually, however, water bags, blankets
and such were parceled out in proportion to numbers. The live goat and
the remains of the cooked one would go with the men afoot. The cage of
pigeons was lashed to the spare horse, along with a sack of grain for
feed.

"Better to give the grain to the horses," Conan grumbled, "and feed
ourselves what we can catch." He tossed a stirrup leather up over the
silver-studded saddle on the big black and bent to check the girth
strap. The two parties had truly become separate now. Those who would
ride to Vendhya checked their horses while a short distance away, the
men who were returning to Sultanapur bundled and lashed their share of
the supplies into backpacks, murmuring doubtfully among themselves.

"Mitra's Mercies, Cimmerian," Hordo told him, "but there are times I
think you do your best just to avoid a few comforts. I look forward to
a spitted pigeon or two roasting over the fire tonight."

Conan grunted. "If we put less attention to our bellies and more to
riding hard, we could catch that caravan by nightfall. The Vendhyans
spoke as if it were not far off."

"That," said Ghurran, leading his horse awkwardly by the reins with
both hands, "would be a good way to travel to Vendhya. We could journey
in safety and in comfort." As though realizing that he intruded on a
private conversation, he gave an apologetic smile and tugged his horse
on.

"That old man," Hordo muttered, "begins to fray my patience. The
Vendhyans nearly kill us, my boat is burned, and through it all nothing
seems to matter to him except reaching Vendhya."

"His single-mindedness does not bother me," Conan said, "though I
should be glad to be able to do without his potions."

The one-eyed man scratched at his beard. "You know it would be best to
forget this caravan, do you not? If the men we fought last night have
gone to join it, there will certainly be trouble there for us. We will
be strangers, and they members of the caravan already."

"I know," Conan said quietly. "But you must know the antidote is not
enough for me. A man has tried to kill me, and perhaps succeeded, over
chests that look to be worth more than their contents. I will know the
why of it, and the answer lies with those chests."

"But be a little careful, Conan. It will profit you little to be
spitted on a Vendhyan lance."

"We tried to be careful last night. From now on, let them be careful of
me." Conan swung up into the saddle and had to catch hold of the high
pommel as his head spun. Grimly he forced himself erect.

"Let them be careful of me," he repeated and kicked the Bhalkhana
stallion into motion.


Chapter IX

Sand dunes quickly gave way to plains of tough, sparse grass and low,
isolated hills. Scrub growth and thorn bushes dotted the land, though
to the east taller trees could be seen along the banks of the
Zaporoska. To the south the grayness of mountains, the Colchians, rose
on the horizon. The sun climbed swiftly, a blazing yellow ball in a
cloudless sky, with a baking heat that sucked moisture from man and
ground. A puff of dust marked each hoof-fall.

Throughout the day Conan kept a steady pace, one the horses could
maintain until nightfall. And he intended to maintain it that long and
longer, if need be, despite the heat. His sharp eyes had easily located
the tracks left by the Vendhyans and their pack mules. No effort had
been made to conceal them. The harsh-voiced man had been concerned with
swiftness, not with the unlikely possibility that someone might follow
his trail. Enam and Shamil proved to be good hands with a bow, making
forays from the line of travel that soon had half a score of lean brown
hares hanging from their saddles.

The Cimmerian ignored suggestions that they should stop at midday to
cook the hares. Stops to give the horses a drink from cupped hands he
tolerated, but no sooner had he pushed the plug back into his water bag
than he was mounted again and moving. Always to the south, though
drifting slightly to the east as if not to get too far from the
Zaporoska. Always following the tracks of two score of mounted men with
pack horses.

The sun dropped toward the west, showing a display of gold and purple
on the mountains, and still Conan kept on, though the sky darkened
rapidly overhead and the faint glimmerings of stars were appearing.
Prytanis was no longer the only one muttering. Hordo, and even Ghurran,
joined in.

"We will not reach Vendhya by riding ourselves to death," the old
herbalist groaned. He shifted on his saddle, wincing. "And it will do
you no good if I am too stiff and sore to mix the potion that keeps you
alive."

"Listen to him, Cimmerian," Hordo said. "We cannot make the journey in
a single day."

"Has one day's riding done you in?" Conan laughed. "You who were once
the scourge of the Zamoran plains?"

"I have become more suited to a deck than a saddle," the one-eyed man
admitted ruefully. "But, Erlik blast us all, even you can no longer see
the tracks you claim to follow. I'll believe much of those accursed
northern eyes of yours, but not that."

"I've no need to see the tracks," Conan replied, "while I can see
that." He pointed ahead where tiny lights were barely visible through
the thickening twilight. "Have you gotten so old you can no longer tell
stars from campfires?"

Hordo stared, tugging at his beard, then finally grunted, "A league,
perhaps more. 'Tis all but full dark now. Caravan guards will not look
with kindness on strangers approaching in the night."

"I will at least be sure it is the right caravan," Conan said.

"You will get us all killed," Prytanis grumbled loudly. "I said it from
the first. This is a fool's errand, and you will get us all killed."

Conan ignored him, but he did slow the stallion to a walk as they drew
closer to the fires. Those fires spread out like the lights of a small
city, and indeed he had seen many respectable towns that covered a
lesser expanse. A caravan so large would have many guards. He began to
sing, somewhat off tune, a tavern song of Sultanapur, relating the
improbable exploits of a wench of even more improbable endowments.
"What in Mitra's name?" Hordo growled perplexedly.

"Sing," Conan urged, pausing in his effort. "Men of ill intent do not
announce themselves half a league off. You would not wish a guard to
put an arrow in you just because you came on him suddenly in the night.
Sing." He took up the song again, and after a moment the others joined
in raggedly, all save Ghurran, who sniffed loudly in disapproval of the
lyrics.

The bawdy words were ringing through the night when, with a jingle of
mail, a score of horsemen burst out of the darkness to surround them
with couched lances and aimed crossbows. They wore Turanian armor for
the most part, but mismatched. Conan saw a Corinthian breastplate and
helmets from three other lands. He let the song trail off the others
had ceased in mid-word-and folded his hands on the pommel of his
saddle.

"An interesting song," one of the lancers growled, "but who in Zandru's
Nine Hells are you to be singing it here?" He was a tall man, his
features hidden in the dark by a nasaled Zamoran helm. At least his
voice was not a harsh rasp.

"Wayfarers," Conan replied, "journeying to Vendhya. If you also travel
in that direction, perhaps you could use a few extra swords." The tall
lancer laughed. "We have more swords than we can use, stranger. A few
days past Karim Singh himself, the wazam of Vendhya, joined this
caravan with five hundred Vendhyan cavalry sent to escort him from the
shores of the Vilayet."

"A great many Vendhyans," Conan said, "to be this close to Turan. I
thought they stayed beyond Secunderam."

"I will tell Yildiz of it the next time I speak with him," the lancer
replied dryly. A few of his men laughed, but none of the weapons was
lowered.

"Do You have other latecomers in your caravan?" Conan asked.

"A strange question. Do you seek someone?"

Conan shook his head as though he had not noticed the creak of leather
and mail as the caravan guards tensed. In the long and often lawless
passages between cities, caravans protected all of their members
against outsiders, no matter the claims or charges. "I seek to travel
to Vendhya," he said. "But if there are other latecomers, perhaps some
of them need guards. Possibly some of your merchants feel less safe,
not more, for the presence of five hundred Vendhyans. Soldiers have
been known to have their own ideas of what taxes are due, and how they
should be collected."

The lancer's long drawn-out breath told that the idea was not a new one
to him. Caravans had paid one tax to the customs men before, and then
another to the soldiers supposedly sent to protect them. "Eight
swords," he muttered, shaking his head. "Two score and three parties of
merchants make up this caravan, stranger, including seven who have
joined us since we rounded the southern end of the Vilayet. There are
always those-no offense intended-who think to make the journey alone
until they see the wastes of the Zaporoska before them and realize the
Himelias are yet ahead. Then they are eager to join the first caravan
that appears, if they are lucky enough that one does. I will pass the
word of your presence, but you must understand that I can allow you to
come no closer in the night. How shall I tell them you are called,
stranger?"

"Tell them to call me Patil," Conan replied. Hordo groaned through his
teeth.

"I am Torio," the lancer said, "captain of the caravan guard. Remember,
Patil, keep your men well clear of the caravan until first light."
Raising his lance sharply, he wheeled his mount and led the guards away
at a gallop toward the caravan's fires.

"I expect this is as good a spot to camp as any," Conan said,
dismounting. "Baltis, if you can find something to burn, we can make a
good meal on roast hare before sleeping. I could wish we had saved some
wine from the ship."

"He is mad," Prytanis announced to the ebon sky. "He gives a name that
will bring men after us with blades in their fists, then wishes he had
some wine to go with the hare."

"As much as I hate to agree with Prytanis," Hordo rumbled, "he is right
this time. If you had to give a name other than your own-though, by
Mitra's bones, I cannot see why-could you not have chosen another than
that?"

"The Cimmerian is wily," Baltis laughed. "When you hunt rats, you set
out cheese. This is cheese our Vendhyan rats cannot fail to sniff."

Conan nodded. "He has the right of it, Hordo. There must be more than a
thousand people in that caravan. Now I do not have to search for the
men I seek. They will search me out instead."

"And if they search you out with a dagger in the back? Or a few score
swordsmen falling on us in the night?" The one-eyed man threw up his
hands in exasperation.

"You still do not see," Conan said. "They will want to know who I am,
and what I do here, especially using Patil's name. Think of the pains
to which they have gone to keep those chests secret. What do I know,
and who have I told? They can learn nothing if I am dead."

"You begin to sound as devious as a Stygian," Hordo muttered into his
beard.

"For myself," Ghurran said, lowering himself unsteadily to the ground,
"I do not care at this moment if Bhandarkar's Lion Guard descends on
us." He knuckled the small of his back and stretched, grunting. "After
I find myself on the outside of one of those hares, I may feel
different, but not now."

"Well?" Conan said, eying the others. "Even if the first man Torio
speaks to is one of those I seek, you still have time to be away before
they get here."

One by one they got down, Prytanis last of all, and he still muttering.
By the time the horses were relieved of their saddles and hobbled,
Baltis had a fire going, and Enam and Shamil were skinning and spitting
hares. Water, Conan discovered, went very well with roast hare when
nothing else was available.

The fire burned low, clean-picked bones were tossed aside, and silence
replaced the talk that had prevailed while they ate. Conan offered to
take the first watch, but no one seemed to have any interest in
wrapping himself in his blankets. One by one all but Conan and Ghurran
took out oil and stone to tend their blades. Each tried to act as
though this had nothing to do with any possible attack but every man
turned his back to the dying fire as he worked. There would be less
adjustment for the eyes to the dark that way.

Ghurran fussed about his leather sack, at last thrusting the
too-familiar pewter goblet at the big Cimmerian. A anticipatory grimace
formed on Conan's face as he took it. As he steeled himself to drink, a
clatter of hooves sounded in the night. He leaped to his feet, slopping
some of the foul-tasting potion over the rim of the cup, and his free
hand went to his sword.

"I thought you were sure there would be no attack," Hordo said, holding
his own blade at the ready. Every man around the fire was on his feet,
even Ghurran, who twisted his head about as though looking for a place
to hide.

"If I was always right," Conan said, "I should be the wealthiest man in
Zamora instead of being here." Someone-he was not sure who-sighed
painfully.

Seven horses halted well beyond the firelight, and three of the riders
dismounted and came forward. Two of them stopped at the very edge of
the darkness while the third approached the fire. Dark eyes, seeming
tilted because of an epicanthic fold, surveyed the smugglers from a
bony, saffron-skinned face.

"I hope that your swords are not for me," the man said in fluent, if
overly melodious Hyrkanian as he tucked his hands into the broad
sleeves of a pale-blue velvet tunic embroidered on the chest with a
heron. A round cap of red silk topped with a gold button sat on his
shaven head. "I am but a humble merchant of Khitai, intending harm to
no man."

"They are not for you," Conan said, motioning the others to put up
their weapons. "It is just that a man must be on guard when strangers
approach in the night."

"A wise precaution," the Khitan agreed. "I am Kang Hou, and I seek one
called Patil."

"I am called Patil," Conan said.

The merchant arched a thin eyebrow. "A strange name for a chengli. Your
pardon. It means simply a person with pale skin, one from the lands of
the distant west. Such men are considered mythical by many in my land."

"I am no myth," Conan snorted. "And the name suffices me."

"As you say," Kang Hou said blandly. He gave no signal that Conan could
see, but the other two figures came forward. "My nieces," the merchant
said, "Chin Kou and Kuie Hsi. They accompany me everywhere, caring for
an aging man in his dotage."

Conan found himself gaping at two of the most exquisite women he had
ever seen. They had oval faces and delicate features that could have
been carved by a master striving to show the beauty of Eastern women.
Neither looked at all like their uncle, for which the Cimmerian was
grateful. Chin Kou seemed a flower fashioned of aged ivory, with
downcast almond eyes and a shy smile. Kuie Hsi's dark eyes were
lowered, too, but she watched with a twinkle through her lashes, and
her skin was like sandalwood-hued satin.

He was not the only one struck by the women, Conan realized. Baltis and
Enam appeared to be mentally stripping them of their silken robes,
while Prytanis all but drooled with lust. Hasan and Shamil merely
stared as if hit in the head. Even Hordo had a gleam in his eye that
spoke of calculation as to how to separate one or both of the women
from the company of their uncle. As usual, only Ghurran seemed
unaffected.

"You are welcome here," the Cimmerian said loudly. "You and your nieces
both. The man who offends any of you offends me." That got everyone's
attention, he noted with approval, and dimmed a few amatory fires by
the sour looks he saw on their faces.

"I am honored by your welcome," the merchant said, making a small bow.

Conan returned the bow and smothered a curse as he spilled more of the
potion over his hand. Emptying the goblet in one long gulp, he tossed
the cup to Ghurran, not quite hurling it at his head. "Filthy stuff,"
he spat.

"Men doubt the efficacy of medicine without a vile taste," Ghurran
said, and Kang Hou turned his expressionless gaze on the herbalist.

"That is an old Khitan proverb. You have journeyed to my land?" Ghurran
shook his head.

"No. I had it from the man who taught me herbs. Perhaps he went there,
though he never spoke of it to me. Do you know much of herbs? I am
always interested in discovering plants new to me, and the uses of
them."

"Regrettably, I do not," the merchant replied. "And now, Patil, if I
may rush matters unconscionably, I would speak of business."

"Speak of what you will," Conan said when he realized the other man was
going to await permission.

"I thank you. I am a poor merchant, a dealer in whatever I can. On this
trip, velvets from Corinthia, carpets from Iranistan, and tapestries
from Turan. I joined the caravan but two days ago and would not have
done so save for necessity. The captain of the vessel that brought me
across the Vilayet Sea, a rogue called Valash, had promised to provide
ten men as guards. After putting my goods and my animals ashore,
however, he refused to honor his agreement. My nieces and I thus must
try to tend half a score of camels with only the aid of three servants
who, I fear, are of no use at all as protection against brigands."

"I know of Valash," Hordo said, spitting after the name. " 'Tis
Hanuman's own luck he did not slit your throat and sell your goods-and
your nieces-in Khawarism."

"He attempted no such," the Khitan said. "I was not aware that you were
men of the sea."

"We have all been many things in our time," Conan replied. "At the
moment we are men with swords who might be hired as guards if enough
coin is offered."

Kang Hou tilted his head as though considering. "I think," he said at
last, "that two silver coins for each man would be equitable. And a
gold coin each if I and my goods reach Ayodhya in safety."

Conan exchanged a look with Hordo, then said, "Done."

"Very good. Until you are ready to ride to the caravan, I will wait
with the guards Captain Torio was good enough to lend me. Come,
nieces."

As soon as the Khitans were gone, Baltis let out a low laugh. "A gold
and two silvers to make a journey we were making for free. The Khitan
must have a king's wealth to pay so. There's luck in you, Cimmerian.
Take that sour look off your face, Prytanis."

"That," Hasan announced, "was the most beautiful woman I have ever
seen."

"Kuie Hsi?" Shamil said jealously.

"The other. Chin Kou."

"That is all we need," Hordo grumbled as he began rolling his blankets,
"for those two to lose their heads over this Khitan's nieces. You
realize he was lying, do you not? Unless there are two men called
Valash captaining ships on the Vilayet, he never got those wenches off
that vessel as easily as he makes out."

"I know," Conan said. "I did not hear you refusing him because of it
though." The one-eyed man muttered something. "What, Hordo?"

"I said, at least this time you've not gotten us involved with a
wizard. You have a bad habit of making wizards annoyed with you."

Shouldering his saddle, Conan laughed. "This time I will not come
within a league of a wizard."


Chapter X

The music of cithern, flute and tambour sounded softly in the
alabaster-columned chamber, the musicians hidden behind a lacy screen
carved of ivory. Golden lamps, hanging on silver chains from the
vaulted ceiling, cast a sheen on the olive skins of six veiled, supple
women, clothed in naught else but tinkling golden bells at their
ankles, who danced with finger-cymbals. The smell of incense and attar
of roses suffused the air. Other women, as lovely as the dancers and
garbed as they, scurried with dainty steps to proffer silver trays of
sweetmeats, figs and candied delicacies to Naipal, reclining at his
ease on cushions of brocaded silk. Two of their sisters worked long
fans of pale ostrich plumes to cool him. The mage merely picked at the
offerings and toyed with his goblet of Shirakman wine. He gave as
little heed to the women, for his mind was distant from his
surroundings.

Near Naipal's head knelt a soft, round-faced man whose tunic of scarlet
silk and turban of gold and blue seemed gaudy beside the wizard's soft
grays. He, too, gave no eye to the women as he reported in a soft voice
on how the day had seen his master's wishes carried out. "And one
thousand pice were handed out in your name, lord, to the beggars of
Ayodhya. An additional one thousand pice were . . ."

Naipal stared into his wine, as heedless of its exquisite bouquet as of
the eunuch's voice. Five times as the tortuous days passed he had gone
to the hidden chamber; twice he actually put his hand on the ornate
ivory case. But each time he convinced himself to wait, each time with
a new reason. The canker in his bosom was that he well knew the true
cause of his hesitancy. To open the case, to gaze on the mirror within,
perhaps to see that danger to all his plans was yet reflected there,
this was more than he could bear. The fear he had fought off in that
night of frenzy was returned a hundredfold to paralyze him. Something
whispered in the back of his mind, wait. Wait a little longer, and
surely the mirror would again be empty, the danger dealt with by his
far-flung minions. He knew the whisper was false, yet even as he
castigated himself for listening, he waited.

To take his mind from doubts and self-flagellation, he tried to listen
to the eunuch. The fat man now murmured of the day's happenings in
Ayodhya, such as he thought might interest his master.

". . . And finding his favorite wife in the embrace of her two lovers,
each a groom from his own stables, Jharim Kar slew the men and flogged
his wife. He slew as well three servants who were witness, but the tale
is already laughed at in the bazaars, lord. In the forenoon Shahal Amir
was slain on the outskirts of the city, by bandits it is said, but two
of his wives . . ."

Sighing, Naipal let the man's continued burblings pass his ears
unheard. Another time the matter of Jharim Kar would have been
pleasing, though not of prime importance. A score of deft manipulations
to lead a woman to folly and a husband to discovery of that folly, with
the result that a man who once gathered other lords around him was now
laughed at. A man could not be at once a leader and the butt of bawdy
laughter. It was not that Naipal bore Jharim Kar any animus. The
nobleman had simply attracted too many others to his side, creating
what could have grown into a island of stability in a sea of shifting
loyalties and intrigues. The wizard could not allow that. Greater
intrigues and increasing turmoil were necessary to his plans.
Bhandarkar guarded himself well against his wizard; kings who trusted
too much did not long rule, and this king's toenail parings or hair
clippings were burned as soon as cut. But Bhandarkar would die, if not
from so esoteric a means as he feared, and without his strong hand,
turmoil would become chaos, a chaos on which Naipal would impose a new
order. Not in his own name, of course. But he would pull the strings,
and the king he put on the throne would not even know he danced at
another's will.

Lost in dreams of the future, Naipal was startled by the sudden
throbbing warmth on his chest. Not quite believing, he clutched at the
black opal beneath his robes. Through layers of silk the stone pulsed
against his palm. Masrok signaled!

"Be silent!" he roared, throwing the goblet at the eunuch's head for
emphasis. The round-faced man snapped his mouth shut as though fearing
for his tongue. "Go to Ashok," Naipal ordered. "Tell him that all I
have commanded is to be readied at once. At once!"

"I run to obey, lord." The eunuch began shuffling backward on his
knees, bumping his forehead to the floor.

"Then run, Katar take you!" Naipal shouted. "Or you will find there is
more than can be taken from a man than you have lost!" Babbling
terrified compliance, the eunuch scrambled to his feet, still
genuflecting, and fled. Naipal's glare swept from the sleek nudity of
the dancers to the ivory screen hiding the musicians. At his command
for silence, all had frozen, hardly daring to breathe. "Play!" he
barked. "Dance! You will all be beaten for laziness!"

The music burst forth desperately, and the dancers writhed in a frenzy
to please, but Naipal dismissed them from his awareness and waved away
the serving girls. His heart seemed to beat in time with the throbbing
of the opal against his hand. The stone was all his mind had room for,
the sign from Masrok that the demon should be summoned, and what that
must mean. Ashok, chief among the tongueless ones, would quickly
prepare the chamber below. In such terror was the wizard held by those
who served the gray chambers that he knew they would literally run
themselves to death to obey his slightest wish, let alone a command. It
could not be done quickly enough to suit him, however. Impatience
bubbled in him like the surface of a geyser before eruption.

Able to wait no longer, Naipal flung himself to his feet and stalked
from the chamber. Behind him dancers and musicians continued their vain
strivings, fearful now to cease without his express command.

To his bedchamber Naipal went first, to fetch the golden coffer
containing the demon-wrought dagger. That must be in Masrok's view, not
mentioned this time, but no less a reminder that even a demon could be
slain.

When he reached the gray-domed chamber beneath the palace, the wizard
nodded in satisfaction without even realizing that he had done so. A
large, tightly woven basket, its lid lashed firmly in place, stood near
his worktable. A bronze gong with a padded mallet hanging from its
teakwood frame had been placed near the iron latticework set in one
wall.

Naipal paused by the bars. From the door that was part of the iron mesh
a ramp led down into a round pit lit by rush torches set high on the
walls. On the sand-covered floor of the pit a score of swords in
various patterns made an untidy heap. Directly opposite the ramp a
massive iron-bound door let into the pit.

For a single test he had used the fires of the khorassani to carve out
the pit and the cells and connecting corridors beyond. A single test
but most necessary, for he had to test the truth of the ancient
writings. He did not believe they lied, but none knew better than he
that there were degrees of truth, and he must know the exact degree of
this truth. But other things must be done first. Beneath his robes the
black opal still pulsed against his chest.

Denying his own need for haste, Naipal took greater care than ever
before in setting the nine khorassani on their golden tripods.
Anticipation burned in him like fanned coals as the tenth stone,
blacker than midnight, was placed. He settled on the cushions before
it, and once more the ancient incantation rolled against the canescent
walls.

"E'las eloyhim! Maraath savinday! Khora mar! Khora mar!"

Once more bars of fire leaped up. The stones blazed like imprisoned
suns, and a pathway was opened to realms unknowable to mortal man.
"Masrok," Naipal called, "I summon you!"

The winds of infinity blew. Thunder roared and the huge obsidian demon
floated within the fiery cage. And with it floated another figure, that
of a man in armor of studded leather and a spiked helm of a kind unseen
in Vendhya for more than a thousand years. Two swords of unbelievable
antiquity-one long and straight, one shorter and curved-hung at the
armored figure's sides. Almost did Naipal laugh with joy. Success! He
did not realize he had spoken aloud until the demon replied in tones
like a storm.

"Success you call it, O man? I call it betrayal! Betrayal heaped upon
betrayal!"

"Surely a small betrayal only," Naipal said. "And freedom is your
eventual reward." A shudder passed through the demon, and its eight
arms shook until the wizard feared it might attempt to hurl one of its
weapons at him, or even try to fling itself through the flaming
barrier. He laid a nervous hand on the golden coffer.

"You speak of what you do not know, O man! A small betrayal? To do your
bidding I was forced to slay one of my other selves! For the first time
since time itself began, one of the Sivani is slain, and by my hand!"

"And you fear the vengeance of the other two? But surely they do not
know, or you would not be here."

"And how long before they discover the deed, O man?"

"Fear not," the mage said. "I will find a way to protect you." Before
the demon could speak again, Naipal shouted. "Go, Masrok! I command
it!"

With a deafening roar the demon was gone, and only the ancient warrior
floated within the bars of the fire.

Now Naipal did permit himself to laugh. Demons, it seemed, could indeed
be enmeshed as easily as men.

Swiftly he set about lowering the sorcerous barrier, a task more
difficult in some ways than erecting it had been. At last it was done,
and he hurried to examine the figure that now stood precisely centered
on the arcane pattern in the floor. No breath stirred the ancient
warrior's chest, and no light shone in his dark, staring eyes, yet his
dusky skin seemed to glow with life. Curious, Naipal touched the
warrior's cheek and grunted. Despite what seemed living suppleness to
the eye, it was like touching leather stretched tight over wood.

"Now," Naipal murmured to himself.

From the myriad of crystal beakers and vials on his worktable, he chose
out five, pouring small, precisely measured portions of their contents
into a mortar wrought from the skull of a virgin murdered by her
mother. Four of those ingredients were so rare that he begrudged even
the tiny amounts needed. With the thigh bone of the virgin's mother for
a pestle, he ground and mixed until he had a black paste.

The mage hesitated before turning to the large wicker basket. Then,
steeling himself, he tore open the lashings that held its lid. Pity
rose in him as he looked down on the ragged boy within, bound and
gagged, frozen with fear. Forcefully he stifled emotion and lifted the
child from the basket. The small form trembled as he laid it before the
shape of the warrior. He could feel the child's eyes on him, though he
tried to ignore them.

Hastily now, as if to be done with the thing, Naipal fetched the
foulmade mortar. Dipping the little finger of his left hand into the
black paste, he drew a symbol on the forehead of the bound child, then
again on that of the warrior. The residue he scrubbed carefully from
his finger with a cloth.

The warrior, the child and the largest of the khoassani lay in a
straight line. Naipal lowered himself to the cushions to invoke powers
not summoned before.

"Mon'draal un'tar, maran vi'endar!"

The words were softly spoken, yet the walls of the chamber chimed in
resonance with them. Thrice Naipal repeated the chant and at the third
speaking, rays of light, cold and pale as mountain snow, lanced from
the ebon stone, one to strike the dark symbol on the warrior's
forehead, the other that on the child's. On and on Naipal spoke the
incantation. A third icy beam sprang into being, linking the two
symbols directly. The child arched his back and screamed, unable to
move his head from beneath the glittering point of that sorcerous
triangle. Naipal cried the words loudly to drown out the scream. A
whine shimmered from the light like the string of a zither drawn too
tight.

Abruptly all was silence; the rays of light vanished. Naipal expelled a
long breath. It was done. Getting to his feet, he approached the
lifeless body of the child. He had eyes only for that small form.

"You have been freed from a life of misery, pain and hunger," he said.
"Your spirit has gone to dwell in a purer realm. Only life was taken
from you. It had to be a young life, not yet fully formed." He paused,
then added, "I would use the children of nobles and of the wealthy if I
could." Funeral fires fit for a lord, he decided. Such would he give
this nameless waif.

Slowly his gaze rose to the leather-armored figure. Still no breath
stirred in that body. Was there light in the eyes? "Can you hear me?"
he demanded. There was no reply. "Step forward!" Obediently the warrior
took one pace forward and stood again as a statue. "Of course," Naipal
mused. "You are without volition of your own. You obey me, who gave you
life again, and only me, unless I command you to heed another. Good. It
is as the writings said. So far. Follow me!"

Maintaining the exact distance between them, the warrior obeyed. Naipal
unlocked the door in the iron latticework and motioned. The other
stepped through, and the wizard closed and relocked the barred door. It
was good, Naipal thought, that spoken commands were not necessary. The
writings had been unclear.

A hollow tone boomed as Naipal struck the gong with the padded mallet.
In the pit the iron-bound door swung open. Moving cautiously, twenty
men appeared, eyes going immediately to Naipal and the motionless
figure at the head of the ramp. Behind them the door closed silently.
When they saw the swords piled on the sand, there was but a moment's
hesitation before they rushed for the weapons. The men were as varied
as the blades they seized, wearing garb ranging from filthy rags to
some noble's cast-off silken finery. They had not been randomly chosen.
The test would not be complete then. In that pit were brigands,
bandits, deserters from the army, each one familiar with a sword.
Freedom and gold had been promised to those who survived. Naipal
thought he might even honor the promise.

"Kill them," he commanded.

Even as the words left his mouth, six of the ruffians charged howling
up the ramp, blades swinging. His face an expressionless mask, the
leather-clad warrior drew his archaic swords and moved smoothly to meet
them. The six attacked with a frenzy driven by the promise of freedom;
the warrior fought with lightning precision. When the form in ancient
armor moved on, a single head rolling down the ramp before it, six
corpses littered the way behind.

In the pit two of the deserters hastily chivvied those remaining into
two lines as though they were infantry on a battlefield. The warrior
neither slowed his approach nor altered his stride. The two ranks of
desperate men tensed to meet him. But a pace short of them, the warrior
suddenly leaped to his right, attacking. The rogues Naipal had gathered
may have thought their formation made them infantry, but they had no
shields to protect them. Two fell, bloodied and twitching, before the
ranks could wheel under the deserters' shouted instructions. The
resurrected warrior did not wait for them, however. As the lines
pivoted, he leaped back the other way and dashed into their midst from
the flank. The deserters' small order dissolved in a melee of hacking
steel, welling blood and screaming men, each fighting frantically for
himself alone, each dying as the ancient warrior's flashing blade
reached him.

When the leather-armored figure slit the throat of the last kicking
wretch, Naipal breathed deep in wondering satisfaction. Twenty corpses
littered the crimson-splashed sand, and the reborn warrior stood
unharmed. In truth there were rents in the studded leather of his
armor, and his teeth could be seen through a gash that laid open his
cheek, but not a drop of blood fell from him. He moved among the
bodies, making sure that each was actually dead, as though no blade had
ever touched him.

Turning his back on the scene below, the wizard sagged against the
bars, laughing until he wheezed for breath. Everything the ancient
writings had claimed was true. The wounds would heal quickly. Nothing
could slay the warrior he had resurrected.

More than two thousand years earlier, a conqueror called Orissa had
carved a score of small nations and city-states into the kingdom of
Vendhya, with himself as its first king. And when King Orissa died, an
army of twenty thousand warriors was entombed with him, a royal
bodyguard for the afterlife, preserved so perfectly by intricate
thaumaturgies that though they no longer lived, neither were they dead
as ordinary men died. With the proper rituals, life could be restored
after a fashion, and an army that could not die would march again. All
that was necessary was to find the centuries-lost tomb.

"And that," Naipal laughed, loud and mocking, "is all but done, is it
not, Masrok, my faithful servant?"

Success so filled him with ebullience that the stupefying fear of the
past few days was swept away. Certainly enough time had passed. On
whatever waters that vessel rode, if it was near enough to threaten him
when he was so close to his goals, it must have made shore by now. And
if it had, surely whatever danger it carried had been dealt with by his
myrmidons. He would admit no other thought, not when so many victories
were already his on this day.

With a firm hand he raised the carven ivory lid and brushed back the
silken coverings. Black was the surface of the mirror, and dotted with
tiny points of light. It took a moment for Naipal to realize that he
saw a vast array of campfires, viewed from a great height. If one small
ship had threatened him before, now it seemed that an army did. For his
days of fear he was repaid with more fear, and with uncertainty. Had
the danger of the ship been disposed of, or had it been transmogrified
to this? Was this a new threat, surpassing the old?

Long into the night Naipal's howls of rage echoed in the vast dome.


Chapter XI

When the first paleness of dawn appeared on the horizon, Conan was
already up and saddling the stallion. The hollow thunk of axes chopping
wood drifted to him from the bank of the Zaporoska, not half a league
off and lined with tall trees. He shook his head at the Khitan
merchant's camels, sharing the picket line with the smugglers' horses.
Camels were filthy beasts, to his mind, both in habits and smell, and
untrustworthy besides. He would rather have a horse at any time, or
even a mule.

"Stinking beast," Hordo grumbled, slapping a camel's flank to make it
move aside. Coughing from the cloud of dust he had raised, the one-eyed
man edged into the space created to reach his own mount. "And dirty
too."

"Have you looked at the goods they carry?" Conan asked quietly.

"I saw no chests, if that's what you mean. We cross the river this
morning, you know."

"Pay attention, Hordo. It is all carpets and velvet and tapestries, as
the Khitan said. But the value of it, Hordo." The big Cimmerian had
been a thief in his youth, and his eye could still gauge the price of
anything worth stealing. " 'Tis mainly of the third quality, with only
a little of the second. I should not think it worth carrying to
Arenjun, much less all the way to Vendhya."

"Distance and rarity increase value," Kang Hou said, approaching
silently on felt-slippered feet. His hands were tucked into the sleeves
of a pale-blue velvet tunic, this one embroidered with swallows in
flight. "It is clear you are no merchant, Patil. The Iranistani carpet
that will barely procure a profit in Turan will bring fifty times as
much in Vendhyan. Do you think the finest Vendhyan carpets go to Turan?
Those grace the floors of Vendhyan nobles, yet a far greater price may
be obtained by taking a carpet of the second quality to Aghrapur than
by selling one of the first quality in Ayodhya."

"I am no merchant," Conan agreed, backing the black Bhalkhana away from
the picket line, "nor wish to be. Yet I am as eager to reach Vendhya as
you. If you will excuse me, Kang Hou, I will see when the caravan is to
move on. And what else I can discover," he added for Hordo's ears.

Conan rode through the encampment slowly, for though he was indeed
eager to travel onward, also did he wish to give his eyes a chance to
roam, to see if they might perchance light on some chests like those
used for shipping tea.

The caravan was in fact three encampments, though the three camps
butting one against the other, and even larger than Conan had supposed.
Three and forty merchants, with their servants, attendants and animal
tenders, made up nearly the thousand people he thought the entire
caravan contained, numbering among them Vendhyans and Khitans, Zamorans
and Turanians, Kothians and Iranistanis. Men scurried to collapse and
fold tents, to load bales and bundles and wicker panniers on camels and
mules under the watchful eyes of finely-clad merchants, who eyed each
other as well with surreptitious suspicion, wondering if some other had
cut a sharper bargain or aimed for the same markets. Conan received his
own share of speculative glances, and more than one merchant called
nervously for his guards as the tall Cimmerian rode past.

Vendhyan nobles who had accompanied the wazam to Aghrapur had the
second encampment, and it was odd enough for a second glance even if
the chests were not there. Conan's first thought was that he had
stumbled onto a traveling fair, for well over half a thousand people
surrounded those gaily striped and pennoned pavilions, being lowered
now by turbaned servants. Here, too, were men from many lands, but
these were jugglers keeping a dozen balls in the air at once, and
acrobats balancing atop limber poles. A bear danced to a flute,
tumblers leaped and twisted, and strolling players plucked lute and
zither. Skull-capped men in flowing robes and long beards moved through
the seeming carnival as if it did not exist, talking in twos and
threes, though in truth two of them, screaming insults, were being held
from each other's throats by one man, stripped to the waist and with
bulging muscles oiled, appeared to be a strongman.

The third encampment had already been struck and taken to the river,
where axemen were building rafts for the crossing, but Conan had no
intention of approaching that one in any case. It was not that he could
imagine no way the chests might have ended up in the baggage of Karim
Singh, wazam of Vendhya, but five hundred hard-eyed Vendhyan cavalry
provided steep odds. Their brigantine hauberks and turbaned helms with
mail neck guards were much like those of the Vendhyans on the beach,
but these men were very obviously aware of just how far into disputed
territory they were. They rode like cats, ready to jump at a sound, and
their long-bladed lances swung down if anyone came within a hundred
paces.

Abruptly something whistled past Conan's face, close enough for him to
feel the breeze. Crossbow bolt, a part of his mind told him even as he
instinctively dropped as low as the high pommel would permit and dug
his heels into the big black's flanks. The stallion bounded forward and
was at a dead run in three strides. Conan sensed rather than saw other
quarrels streak by, and once his saddle was jolted by a hit.

As the river drew closer, he finally pulled up and looked back. Nothing
in the breaking camp appeared out of the ordinary. No crossbows were in
evidence; no one even looked in his direction. Dismounting, he checked
the black over. The animal was uninjured and eager to run farther, but
in the high cantle of the saddle there was a quarrel thicker than his
finger. Conan felt a grim chill. A hand-breadth higher and it would
have been in his back. At least there could no longer be any doubt that
the chests were in the caravan.

"You there!" came a shout from the direction of the river. "You,
Patil!"

Conan looked up and saw Torio, the caravan guard captain, riding toward
him. A quick tug pulled the quarrel free. Letting it fall to the
ground, he mounted and rode to meet the other man, who began to speak
immediately.

"'Twice each year for ten years I have made the journey from Aghrapur
to Ayodhya and back, and every time there is something new. Now comes
something in its own way stranger than any I have seen before."

"And what is this strange thing?"

"His Most Puissant Excellency, Karim Singh, wazam of Vendhya, Adviser
to the Elephant, wishes your presence, Patil. I mean no offense, but
you are obviously no noble, and Karim Singh rarely admits the existence
of anyone lower. Why should he suddenly wish to see you, of whom it is
most unlikely he has ever heard before?"

"Adviser to the Elephant?" Conan said, partly because he could think of
no possible answer to the question and partly from amusement. He had
heard of the great gray beasts and hoped to see one on this journey.

"One of the King of Vendhya's titles is the Elephant," Torio replied.
"It is no more foolish than Yildiz being called the Golden Eagle, I
suppose, or any of the other things kings call themselves."

"Where is this Adviser to the Elephant?"

"Across the river already, and I would watch my tongue around him if I
did not want to lose it. That is his pavilion." Torio pointed to a
large sprawling tent of golden silk on the opposite bank, encircled by
a hundred Vendhyan lancers facing outward. "He cares not at all if we
are held up because he wants to talk to you, but his party must be the
first in line of march. Karim Singh will breathe no man's dust." The
guard captain paused, frowning at nothing, occasionally seeming to
study Conan from the corner of his eye. "Mine is a difficult position,
Patil. I am responsible for the safety of all in the caravan but must
offend no one. What who has said to whom, who seeks advantage and
where, these things become important. All the dangers do not come from
outside, from Kuigars or Zuagirs. A man can earn silver, and as the
sums are not so large as others might offer, only silence as to who was
told is required, not total loyalty. Do you understand?"

"No," Conan replied truthfully, and the other man stiffened as though
struck.

"Very well then, Patil. Play the game alone if you wish, but remember
that only the very powerful can play alone and survive." Jerking the
reins viciously, Torio trotted away.

The man belonged with the Vendhyan nobles and the jugglers, Conan
thought. He spouted gibberish and was offended when he was not
understood.

The tree-lined riverbank was a scene of sweating and shouting. With a
crash another thick bole toppled, and laborers rushed with their axes
to hew away limbs so it could be lashed to the large raft half-finished
at the water's edge. A complement of Vendhyan lancers was leading the
horses onto another raft, some fifty feet in length, while a third was
in mid-river, making its way along one or a pair of thick cables bowed
by the slow current of the Zaporoska. Another heavy cable was already
being fastened in place for the raft under construction. Ropes attached
to the rafts led to the motive power for the journey in both
directions: two score of ragged slaves on either bank for each raft.

The Vendhyan cavalrymen stared at Conan, black eyes unblinking and
expressionless, as he led the stallion among them onto the raft. They
were tall men, but he was half a head taller than the biggest. Some
tried to stand straighter. The only sound on the raft was the
occasional stamp of a hoof. Conan could feel the tension in the
soldiers. Any one of them would take a direct look as a challenge and
being obviously ignored as an insult. As he was not looking for a fight
before he even got across the river, the Cimmerian involved himself
with pretending to check his saddle girth.

The raft lurched and swayed, swinging out into the current as a strain
was taken on the two ropes. It was then that Conan found something to
look at in earnest, something on the shore behind them. Well away from
the water, Torio rode slowly, peering at the ground. Looking for what
he had thrown down, Conan realized. He watched the guard captain until
the raft touched the far bank.


Chapter XII

Seen close, the huge tent of golden silk was impressive, supported by
more than a score of tent poles. The hundred Vendhyan lancers could
have fit inside easily, and their horses as well.

The circle of mounted men opened before Conan, seemingly without
command. As he rode through, it closed again. He wished he did not feel
that those steel-tipped lances were the bars of a cage.

Turbaned servants rushed to meet the Cimmerian, one to take the
stallion's bridle, another to hold his stirrup. At the entrance to the
pavilion stood a servant with cool, damp towels on a silver tray, to
wipe his hands and face. Still another knelt and tried to lave his
sandaled feet.

"Enough," Conan growled, tossing back a crumpled towel. "Where is your
master?"

A plump man appeared in the entrance, a spray of egret plumes on his
large turban of gold and green. Beneath the edge of his gold-brocade
tunic peeked the pointed, curling toes of silken slippers. Conan
thought this was the wazam until the man bowed deeply and said, "Pray
follow me, master."

Within, a large chamber had been created by hangings of cloth of gold
and floors of Vendhyan carpets fit for the palace of a king. Incense
lay thick and heavy in the air. Hidden musicians began to play on flute
and cithern as Conan entered, and five women, so heavily veiled and
swathed in silk that he could see nothing but their dark eyes, began to
dance.

Reclining on a rainbow of silken cushions was a tall man, his narrow
olive face topped by a turban of scarlet silk. The servant's snowy
plumes were duplicated here in diamonds and pearls. About his neck hung
a thick necklace of gold set with emeralds as large as pigeon's eggs,
and every finger wore a ring of rubies and sapphires. His dark eyes
were deep-set and harder than any of the gems he wore.

"Are you Karim Singh?" Conan asked.

"I am." The seated man's deep voice held a note of shock, but he said,
"Your lack of the proper forms is strange, but amusing. You may
continue it. You are the one called Patil. It is a name of my country
and seems odd on one so obviously from distant lands."

"There are many lands," Conan said, "and many names. The name Patil
serves me."

The wazam smiled as though the Cimmerian had said something clever.
"Sit. One must endure the deprivations of travel, but the wine, at
least, is tolerable."

Seating himself cross-legged on the cushions, Conan ignored silver
trays of candied dates and pickled quail eggs proffered by servants who
seemed to appear and vanish by magic, so obsequiously silent were they.
He did accept a goblet of heavy gold, ringed by a wide band of
amethysts. The wine had a smell of perfume and tasted of honey.

"Word travels quickly," Karim Singh went on. "I soon heard about you, a
pale-skinned giant with eyes like.... Most disconcerting, those eyes."
He did not sound in the least disconcerted. "I know much of the western
world, you see, though it is a veiled land to many of my countrymen.
Before journeying to Aghrapur to make treaty with King Yildiz, I
studied what has been written. While there, I listened. I know of the
pale barbarians of the distant north, fierce warriors, stark slayers,
ruthless. Such men can be useful."

For the first time in what seemed a very great while, Conan felt he was
on ground he knew, if ground he did not particularly like. "I have
taken service as far as Ayodhya," he said. "After that my plans are
uncertain."

"Ah, yes. The Khitan. He is a spy, of course."

Conan almost choked on the wine. "The merchant?"

"In Vendhya all foreigners are considered spies. It is safer that way."
The intent look in Karim Singh's eyes made the Cimmerian wonder for
whom he himself was considered to be spying. "But there are spies, and
there are spies. One who spies on a spy, for instance. Not all in my
land have Vendhya's best interests in their hearts. It might be of
interest to me to know to whom in Vendhya the Khitan speaks, and what
he says. It might interest me enough to be worth gold."

"I am not a spy," Conan said tightly. "Not for anyone." He felt a
moment's confusion as the wazam gave a pleased smile.

"Very good, Patil. It is seldom one finds a man faithful to the first
buyer."

There was a patronizing tone to his words that made Conan's eyes grow
cold. He thought of explaining, but he did not think this man would
recognize the concept of honor if it were thrust in his face. As he
cast about for a way to change the subject, the Cimmerian's gaze fell
on the dancers and his jaw dropped. Opaque veils still covered the
faces of the five women to the eyes, but the other swathings of silk
now littered the carpets beneath their feet. All of them. Supple curves
of rounded olive flesh spun across the chamber, now leaping like
gazelles with stretching legs, now writhing as though their bones had
been replaced with serpents.

"You appreciate my trinkets?" Karim Singh asked. "They are trophies,
after a fashion. Certain powerful lords long opposed me. Then each
discovered he was not so powerful as he thought, discovered, too, that
even for a lord, life itself could have a price. A favorite daughter,
for instance. Each personally laid that price at my feet. Are they not
lovely?"

"Lovely," Conan agreed hoarsely. He strove for a smoother tone, lest
the other take his surprise for a lack of sophistication. "And I have
no doubt their faces will be equally as lovely when the final veil is
dropped."

Karim Singh stiffened momentarily. "I forget that you are an outlander.
These women are of my purdhana. For them to unveil their faces before
anyone other than myself would shame them greatly, and me as well."

Considering the soft nudities before him, Conan nodded. "I see," he
said slowly. He did not see at all. Different lands, different customs,
but this tended toward madness. Taking a deep breath, he set down the
goblet and rose to his feet. "I must go now. Kang Hou will soon be
crossing the river."

"Of course. And when you reach Ayodhya and no longer serve him, I will
send for you. There is always need for a man of loyalty, for a ruthless
slayer untroubled by civilized restraints."

Conan did not trust himself to speak. He jerked his head in what he
hoped might pass for a bow and stalked out.

Outside the tent the plump man with the egret plumes on his turban was
waiting, a silver tray in his hands. "A token from my master," he said,
bowing.

There was a leather purse on the tray. It was soft and buttery in
Conan's palm and he could feel the coins within. He did not open it to
count them or to see if they were gold or silver.

"Thank your master for his generosity," he said, then tossed the purse
back to the startled man. "A token from me. Distribute it among the
other servants."

He could feel the plump fellow's eyes on his back as he strode to his
horse-the two servants were still there; one to hold the bridle, one to
hold the stirrup for him to mount-but he did not care. If Karim Singh
was insulted by the gesture, so be it. He had had all of His Puissant
Excellency, the Adviser to the Elephant, that he could stomach.

The steel-tipped circle opened once more, and Conan rode toward the
water. Cursing camel drivers used long switches to drive their laden
charges from a raft held tightly against the bank by the slaves on the
tow rope. All three of the rafts were in service now. One, loaded with
Vendhyan nobles, was in mid-river, and the last, crammed with camels
and merchants, was close behind. Two milling masses, merchants in one,
nobles and their odd companions in the other, showed the crossings had
begun soon after he had reached this side. The far bank was crowded
with those waiting.

The Cimmerian did not see Kang Hou or any of the others. If he crossed
back, however, it was just as possible as not that they would pass each
other on the river. He drew rein where he could watch all three landing
places.

As the black stood flicking its tail at flies, stamping its feet with
impatience to run, a Vendhyan cavalryman rode up beside him. The silk
and velvet of the Vendhyan's garb marked him as an officer, the
gemstudded scabbard of his sword and the gilding of his turbaned helmet
as an officer of rank. An arrogant sneer was on his face and his eyes
were tinged with cruelty. He did not speak, only stared at the big
Cimmerian in fierce silence.

He had sought to avoid a fight once this morning, Conan told himself.
He could easily do so again. After all, the man but looked at him. Only
that. Just looked. Lowering, Conan kept his own gaze on the approaching
rafts. The Vendhyan was alone, therefore it had nothing to do with the
incident of the purse. In his experience, men like the wazam did not
reply to perceived insults in such small ways. But then again, this was
beginning not to seem so small. Conan's jaw tightened.

"You are the man Patil," the Vendhyan barked suddenly. "You are not
Vendhyan."

"I know who and what I am," Conan growled. "Who and what are you?"

"I am Prince Kandar, commanding the bodyguard of the wazam of Vendhya.
And you will guard your tongue or lose it!"

"I have heard a warning much like that once already today," Conan
replied flatly, "but my tongue is still mine, and I will not let go of
it easily."

"Bold words," Kandar sneered, "for an outlander with the eyes of a
pan-kur."

"The eyes of a what?"

"A pan-kur. The spawn of a human woman's mating with a demon. The more
ignorant among my men believe such bring misfortune with their
presence, and evil with their touch. They would have slain you already
had I permitted it."

There was a shifting in the Vendhyan's eyes as he spoke. The more
ignorant of his men? Conan smiled and leaned toward him. "As I said, I
know who and what I am."

Kandar gave a start, and his horse danced a step sideways, but he
mastered his face and his mount quickly. "Vendhya is a dangerous land
for a foreigner, whoever, or whatever, he is. A foreigner who wished to
have no fear of what lay around the next turning or what might come in
the night would do well to seek a shielding hand, to cultivate a patron
in high places."

"And what would this seeking and cultivating require?" Conan asked
dryly.

The Vendhyan moved his horse closer and dropped his voice
conspiratorially. "That certain information, the contents of certain
conversations, be passed on to the patron."

"I told Karim Singh," Conan replied, biting off each word, "and now I
tell you, I will not spy on Kang Hou."

"The Khitan? What are you saying? The wazam has an interest in him?
Bah! I care nothing for merchants!"

The Cimmerian felt as though the other's confusion were contagious. "If
not Kang Hou, then who in Zandru's Nine Hells. .." He paused at a wild
thought. "Karim Singh?"

"Aaah," said Kandar, suddenly all urbanity. "That might be pleasing."

"I begin to believe it all," Conan muttered in tones far from belief.
"I begin to believe you Vendhyans actually could sign a treaty with
Yildiz on one day and kill the High Admiral of Turan the next."

The smoothness that had come to the Vendhyan was as suddenly swept
away. He clutched Conan's arm with a swordsman's iron grip, and his
teeth were bared in a snarl. "Who says this? Who speaks this lie?"

"Everyone in Sultanapur," Conan said quietly. "I suspect, everyone in
Turan. Now take your hand from my arm before I cut it off." Behind
Kandar the raft loaded with nobles had reached the bank, and men were
streaming off. Two Vendhyan women riding sidesaddle walked their horses
toward Conan and the prince. One was plainly garbed and veiled so that
only her eyes showed. The other, riding in advance, had a scarf of
sheer red silk over her raven hair, with pearls worked into her
tresses, but she wore no veil. Necklaces and bracelets of gold and
emeralds adorned her and there were rubies and sapphires on her
fingers.

As Kandar, glaring at Conan, opened his mouth, the unveiled woman spoke
in a low musical tone. "How pleasant to see you, Kandar. I had thought
you avoided me of late."

The Vendhyan prince went rigid. For an instant his eyes stared through
Conan, then he rasped, "We will speak again, you and I." Without ever
once looking around or acknowledging the women's presence, Kandar
kicked his horse to a gallop, spurring toward the wazam's pavilion,
which was already being taken down.

Conan was not sorry to see him go, especially not when he was replaced
by so lovely a creature as the jewel-bedecked woman. Her skin was dusky
satin, and her sloe eyes were large pools in which a man might
willingly lose himself. And those dark, liquid eyes were studying him
with as much interest as he studied their owner. He returned her smile.

"It seems Kandar does not like you," he said. "I think I like anyone he
does not."

The woman's laugh was as musical as her voice. "On the contrary, Kandar
likes me much too much." She saw his confusion and laughed again. "He
wants me for his purdhana. Once he went so far as to try to have me
kidnapped."

"When I want a woman, I do not ride away without so much as looking at
her." He kept his eyes on her face so she would know it was not of
Kandar he spoke at all.

"He has cause. My tirewoman, Alyna," she waved a negligent hand toward
the heavily veiled woman, "is his sister."

"His sister!" Conan exclaimed, and once more she laughed. The veiled
woman stirred silently on her saddle.

"Ah, I see you are bewildered that the sister of a prince could be my
slave. Alas, Alyna dabbled with spies and was to face the headsman's
sword until I purchased her life. I then held a masque to which Kandar
came, intending to press his suit yet again. For some reason, when he
discovered Alyna among the dancing girls, he all but ran from my
palace. Such a simple way to rid myself of the bother of him."

Conan stared at that beautiful, sweetly smiling face, appearing so open
and even innocent, and only what he had already seen and heard that
morning allowed him to credit her words. "You Vendhyans seem to have a
liking for striking at your enemies through others. Do none of you ever
confront an opponent?"

Her laughter was tinkling bells. "You Westerners are so direct, Patil.
Those Turanians! They think themselves devious. They are childlike." He
blinked at that. Childlike? The Turanians? Then something else she had
said struck him. "You know my name."

"I know that you call yourself Patil. One must needs be deaf not to
hear of a man such as yourself, calling himself by a name of Vendhyan.
You interest me."

Her gaze was like a caress running over his broad shoulders and chest,
even down to his lean hips and thick-muscled thighs. Many other women
had looked at him in like fashion and betimes he enjoyed it. This time
he felt like a stallion in the auction barns. "And do you want me to
spy on someone, too?" he asked gruffly.

"As I said," she smiled. "Direct. And childlike."

"I am no child, woman," he growled. "And I want no more of Vendhyan
deviousness."

"Do you know why so many of King Bhandarkar's court accompanied the
wazam to Turan? Not as his retinue, as the Turanians seemed to think.
For us it was a new land to be looted, in a manner of speaking. I found
jugglers and acrobats who will seem new and fresh when they perform at
my palace in Ayodhya. I bring a dancing bear with me and several
scholars. Though I must say the philosophers of Turan do not compare
with those of Khitai."

"Do none of you speak straight out? What has this to do with me?"

"In Vendhya," she said, "the enjoyment of life is a way of life. Men of
the court give hunts and revels, though the last are often no more than
drunken debauches. In any case, neither is proper for a woman of
breeding. Yet for every decision made by men on horseback while lancing
wild boars, two are made in the palace of a noblewoman. You may ask how
mere women compete with the lords and princes. We gather about us
scholars and men of ideas, the finest musicians, the most talented
poets, the best artists, whether in stone or metal or paint. The newest
plays are performed in our palaces and there may be found strange
visitors from far-off, mysterious lands. Nor does it hurt that our
serving wenches are chosen for their beauty, though unlike the men, we
require discretion in their use."

Conan's face had become more and more grim as he listened. Now he
exploded. "That is your 'interest' in me? I am to be a dancing bear or
a montebank?"

"I do not believe the women of the court will find you a dancing bear,"
she said, "although you are nearly as large as one." Suddenly she was
looking at him through long kohled lashes, and the tip of her tongue
touched a full lip. "Nor can I see you as a montebank," she added
throatily.

"Co-Patil!" came a cry, and Conan saw Hordo leading his horse up from
the river.

"I must go," the Cimmerian told her roughly, and she nodded as though
in some manner she was satisfied.

"Seek my tent tonight, O giant who calls himself Patil. My 'interest'
in you is not done with." A smile swept away the seductress to be
replaced by the innocent again. "You have not asked my name. I am the
Lady Vyndra." And a flick of her gold-mounted riding whip sent her
horse leaping away, the veiled woman at her heels.

Behind Hordo, Kang Hou's servants were driving the merchant's camels
ashore, aided by the smugglers. One of the humped beasts knelt on the
bank while Hasan and Shamil solicitously helped Chin Kou and Kuie Hsi
into tented kajawahs, conveyances that hung like panniers on the
animal's sides.

"Pretty wench," Hordo commented, staring after the galloping Vyndra.
"Rides well, too." He looked around to see if anyone was close by, then
dropped his voice. "Did you find the chests?"

Conan shook his head. "But they are here. Someone tried to kill me."

"Always a good way to begin a day," Hordo said dryly. "Did you discover
anything at all?"

"Three men tried to hire me as a spy and that 'pretty wench' wants to
add me to her menagerie."

"Your humor is beyond me, Cimmerian."

"I also found out that my eyes are demon-spawned, and beyond that I
learned that Vendhya is a madhouse."

The one-eyed man grunted as he swung into the saddle. "The first I've
told you before myself. And the second is known to all. It looks as if
we were finally moving."

The wazam's party-Conan remembered Torio saying it had to be first in
the line of march-was beginning to stretch out in a line somewhat east
of due south, with Vendhyan lancers in two columns to either side.
Karim Singh himself was in an ornate litter of ebony and gold, borne
between four horses. An arched canopy of gleaming white silk stretched
above the palanquin and hangings of golden gossamer draped the sides.
Kandar rode beside the litter, bending low out of his saddle to speak
urgently to the man within.

"If they tried to kill you," Hordo went on, "at least you have stirred
them up."

"Perhaps I have," Conan said. He pulled his gaze away from the wazam's
litter. "Let us join Kang Hou and the others, Hordo. There are hours of
light left for traveling yet today."


Chapter XIII

Night and the depths of the earth were necessary for some things. Some
doings could not bear the light of day or exposure to witness of the
open sky. As it did so often of late, night found Naipal in the
gray-domed chamber far below his palace. The air had the very smell of
necromancy, a faint, sickly-sweet taint of decay blended with the
indefinable yet unmistakable hellish odor of evil. The smell hung about
Naipal, a thing it had not done before his last deeds in that chamber,
but he did not notice nor would he have cared had he.

He swung from contemplation of the resurrected warrior, standing as
still as stone against the canescent wall in the same spot to which
Naipal had at last commanded him on the previous night. The wizard's
eyes went to his worktable, skipping quickly over the chest of carved
ivory. There, in crystal-stoppered flasks, were the five ingredients
necessary for the transfer of life, the total quantity of them that he
possessed. In King Orissa's tomb beneath the lost city of Maharashtra
stood twenty thousand deathless warriors. An undying, ever-conquering
army. And he could give life to perhaps twenty.

With a wordless snarl, he began to pace. The ancient mages who prepared
Orissa's tomb had complied with the King's commands to set him an
ever-lasting bodyguard. But those thaumaturges feared the uses to which
that bodyguard could be put if ever it were wakened, and they planned
well. Only one of the five ingredients could be obtained in Vendhya.
The others, chosen partly because they were little-used in sorceries,
could be found only in lands little more than legend in Vendhya even
two thousand years later. He had made arrangements, of course, but of
what use were they when disaster loomed over his head? Forcing his eyes
to the ornate ivory chest, he clenched his fists and glared as though
he wished to smash it, and he was not sure that he did not. When
finally he had dragged himself from the chamber on the night before, it
had been as one fleeing. Creeping through the corridors of his own
palace like a thief, he told himself that this was not the paralysis
returning, not the fear. He had conquered that. Merely he needed to
rest, to refresh himself. Musicians were summoned, and food and wine,
but all tasted like sawdust, and the flutes and citherns clawed at his
nerves. He ordered cooks and musicians both to be flogged. By twos and
threes the women of his purdhana were brought to him and returned,
weeping and welted for their failures to please. Five times in the
course of the day he had commanded that ten thousand pice be
distributed to the poor in his name, but even that produced no
uplifting of his spirits. Now he was back in his sorcery-carved
chambers in the earth's bowels. Here he would deal at last with the
source of his danger, whatever or wherever it was.

His hands reached toward the flat ivory box ... and stopped at the
chime of a bell. Quizzically his head swiveled toward the sound. On one
corner of the rosewood table, crowded amidst crystal beakers filled
with noxious substances and oddly glowing vials sealed with lead, was
another flat chest, this of polished satinwood with a silver bell,
scribed about with arcane symbols, mounted atop it. Even as he looked,
the bell sounded once more.

"So the fool finally found the courage to use it," Naipal muttered. He
hesitated, wanting to see to his own problems, but the bell rang again.
Breathing heavily, he moved around the table to the satinwood chest.

Its lid came off, and he set it aside to stare down at a mirror that
showed his image and that of the chamber in quite ordinary fashion. The
mirror slid within the box on rails and props so that it could be set
at any angle. He raised it almost upright. Eight tiny bone trays came
next, atop silver pegs that fitted into holes on the edge of the box,
one at each corner, one in the precise middle of each side.

Again the bell chimed, and he cursed. Powders prepared long in advance
and stored with the mirror were carefully ladled onto the tiny trays
with a bone spatula. Last to come from the box was a small silver
mallet, graven with miniscule renderings of the symbols on the bell.

"Sa'ar-el!" Naipal intoned. A blue spark leaped from mallet to bell,
and the bell rang. As it did, the powders at the four cardinal points
flared in blue flame. Before those tiny berylline fires died in wisps
of smoke, he spoke again. "Ka'ar--el!" Once more the bell sounded
untouched, and blue flame leaped at the minor points. "Ma'ar-el!
Diendar!" For the third time the chime came and in the mirror Naipal's
reflection swirled and dissolved into a maelstrom of color.

Slowly the polychrome whirling coalesced into the image of a
narrowfaced man in turban of cloth-of-gold wrapped about with golden
chains set with rubies. "Naipal?" the man said. "Asura be praised that
it is you."

"Excellency," Naipal said, suppressing his irritation, "how may I serve
the Adviser to the Elephant, soon to be the Elephant?"

Karim Singh started and stared about him as though fearing who might be
behind him. The man could not be fool enough, Naipal thought, to have
someone with him while he used the scrying mirror. Could he?

"You should not say such things," the wazam said. "Asura alone knows
who might overhear. Another wizard perhaps, listening. And now, of all
times."

"Excellency, I have explained that only those in the actual presence of
these two mirrors . . ." Naipal stopped and drew a deep breath.
Explaining to the fool for the hundredth time was useless. "I am
Naipal, court wizard to King Bhandarkar of Vendhya. I plot the death of
Bhandarkar and spit on his memory. I plot to place His Excellency Karim
Singh on the throne of Vendhya. Your Excellency sees. I would not say
these things if anyone could overhear."

Karim Singh nodded, though his face was pasty. "I suppose I must ...
trust you, Naipal. After all, you serve me faithfully. I also trust
that you know it would be well to give more faithfulness to me than you
have given Bhandarkar."

"I am Your Excellency's servant." Naipal wondered if the man had any
inkling of how much of his rise to power was the wizard's doing. "And
how may I serve Your Excellency now?"

"I ... do not know exactly," the wazam said. "It could be disaster. The
treaty is destroyed, without doubt. Our heads may roll. I warn you,
Naipal, I will not go to the block alone."

Naipal sighed irritably. The treaty with Turan followed the simple
principles he had led Karim Singh to believe were his own. To seize the
throne at Bhandarkar's death required a land in turmoil. Outside
enemies tended to unify a country. Therefore all nations that might
threaten Vendhya-Turan, Iranistan, the nations and city-states of
Khitai and Uttara Koru and Kambuja-must be placated, made to feel
neither threatened by nor threatening toward Vendhya. The wizard's
preferred method was the manipulation of people in key positions,
supplemented by sorcery where needed. It was Karim Singh who thought in
terms of treaties. Still, the journey to Turan had kept him safely out
of Naipal's way for a time.

"Excellency, if Yildiz would not sign, it is of no import. Assuredly,
even if Bhandarkar holds the failure against Your Excellency, he has no
time to-"

"Listen to me, fool!" Karim Singh's eyes bulged hysterically. "The
treaty was signed! And perhaps within hours of that signing the High
Admiral of Turan was dead! At the hands of Vendhyan assassins! Who else
but Bhandarkar himself would dare such a thing? And if it is indeed
him, then what game does he play? Do we move against him unseen, or
does he merely toy with us?"

Sweat dampened Naipal's palms as he listened, but he would not wipe
them while the other could see. His eyes flickered to the ivory chest.
An army? With wizards perhaps? But how could such be mobilized without
his knowing? "Bhandarkar cannot know," he said at last. "Is Your
Excellency sure of all of the facts? Stories often become distorted."

"Kandar was convinced. And this Patil, who told him, is no man for
intrigue. Why, he is as devious as a newborn infant."

"Describe . . . this Patil to me," the wizard said softly. Karim Singh
frowned. "A barbarian. A pale-skinned giant with the eyes of a
pan-kur-. Where are you going? Naipal!"

Before the description was finished, the wizard leaped to the ivory
chest. He threw back the lid, brushed aside the silken coverings and
stared at exactly what he had seen the night before, a vast array of
fires in the night. Not an army. A huge caravan. So many pieces
suddenly fell into place, yet for every answer there was a new
question. He became aware again of Karim Singh's shouting.

"Naipal! Karat take you! Where are you? Return instantly or by Asura .
. ." The wizard moved again in front of the mirror that contained Karim
Singh's now-apoplectic visage. "Just in time to save your head! How
dare you leave like that, without so much as craving permission or a
word of explanation? I will not tolerate such-"

"Excellency. Please. Your Excellency must listen. This man calling
himself Patil, this barbarian giant with the eyes of a pan-kur-"-in
spite of himself, Naipal shuddered at that; could it be an omen, or
worse?-"he must die, and everyone with him. Tonight, Excellency."

"Why?" Karim Singh demanded.

"His description," the mage improvised. "Various divinations have
brought it to me that a man of that description can bring ruin to all
our plans. And as well there is another threat to us in the same
caravan with Your Excellency, a threat of which I learned only a short
time ago. There is a party of Vendhyan merchants. Their leader is a man
called Sabah, though he may use another name. They have pack mules
rather than camels, bearing what will appear to be bales of silk."

"I suppose these men must die as well," Karim Singh said and Naipal
nodded.

"Your Excellency understands well." Commands had been given and
apparently not obeyed. Naipal did not tolerate failure.

"Again, why?"

"The arts of divination are uncertain as to details, Excellency. All
that I can say for certain is that every day, every hour that these men
live, is a threat to Your Excellency's ascension to the throne." The
wizard paused, choosing his words. "There is one other matter,
Excellency. Within what appear to be the bales of silk of the Vendhyan
merchants will be chests sealed with lead seals. These chests must be
brought to me with the seals unbroken. And I must add that the last is
more important to Your Excellency's gaining the throne than all the
rest, than all we have done so far. The chests must be brought to me
with the seals unbroken."

"My gaining the throne," Karim Singh said flatly, "depends on chests
being brought to you? Chests that are with the very caravan in which I
travel? Chests of which you knew nothing until a short time ago?"

"Before Asura, it is so," Naipal replied. "May my soul be forfeit." It
was an easy oath to make; that forfeit had been made long since.

"Very well then. The men will be dead before the sun rises. And the
chests will be brought to you. Peace be with you." The silver bell
chimed in sympathy with the silver bell in the wazam's tent so far
away, and the image in the mirror leaped and was that of Naipal.

"And peace be with you, most excellent of fools," the wizard muttered.

He looked at his palms. The sweat was still there. So many new
questions, but death would provide all the answers he needed. Smiling,
he wiped his hands on his robes.


Chapter XIV

Absolute darkness was pushed back from the night-swathed encampment by
hundreds of campfires scattered among a thousand tents. Many of those
tents glowed with the light of lamps within, casting moving, mysterious
shadows on walls, whether silk or cotton, made less than opaque. The
thrum of citherns floated in the air, and the smell of cinnamon and
saffron from meals not long consumed.

Conan approached Vyndra's tent with an uncertainty he was not used to.
All during the day's march he had avoided her, and if that consisted
mainly in staying with Kang Hou's camels rather than seeking her out,
it had not been so easily done as it sounded. It was possible she
wanted him only as an oddity for her noble friends in Ayodhya, a
strange-eyed barbarian at which to gawk, but on the other hand, a woman
did not look at an oddity coquettishly through lowered lashes. In any
case, she was beautiful, he was young, and therefore he had come as she
asked.

Ducking through the tent's entrance flap, he found himself staring
Alyna in the eyes, which was still all he could see of her for thick
veils and heavy robes. "Your mistress," he began and cut off as a flash
of murderous rage flickered through the woman's eyes.

As quickly as it appeared, though, it was gone, and she bowed him
deeper into the tent, which, though smaller than Karim Singh's was
divided within in much the same fashion by silken hangings.

In a central chamber floored with exquisite Vendhyan carpets and lit by
golden lamps, Vyndra stood awaiting him. "You came, Patil. I am glad."

Conan clamped his teeth firmly to keep from gaping. Gold and rubies and
emeralds still bedecked her, but the robes she had worn earlier were
now replaced by layers of purest gossamer. She was covered from ankles
to neck, yet her position in front of a lamp cast shadows of
tantalizing mystery on rounded surfaces, and the scent of jasmine
floating from her seemed the very distillation of wickedness.

"If this were Turan," he said when he found his tongue, "or Zamora or
Nemedia, and there were two women in a room dressed as the two of you,
it would be Alyna who was free, and you who were slave. To a man,
without doubt, and the delight of his eye."

Vyndra smiled, touching a finger to her lips. "How foolish of those
women to let their slaves outshine them. But if you wish to see Alyna,
I will have her dance for you. I have no other dancing girls with me, I
fear. Unlike Karim Singh and the other men, I do not find them a
necessity."

"I would much rather see you dance," he told her, and she laughed low
in her throat.

"That is something no man will ever see." Yet she twined her arms above
her head and stretched in a motion so supple it cried dancer, and one
that dried Conan's throat. That fabric was more than merely sheer when
drawn tight.

"If I could have some wine," he asked hoarsely.

"Of course. Wine, Alyna, and dates. But sit, Patil. Rest yourself." She
pressed him down onto piled cushions of silk and velvet. He was not
sure of exactly how she managed this since she had to reach up to put
her small hands on his shoulders, but he suspected the perfume had
something to do with it.

He tried to put his arms around her then, while she bent over him so
enticingly, but she slipped away like an eel and reclined on the
cushions just an arm's length away. He settled for accepting a goblet
of perfumed wine from Alyna. The cup was as heavy as the one in which
the wazam had given him wine, though instead of amethysts, it was
studded with coral beads.

"Vendhya seems to be a rich land," he said after he had drunk, "though
I've not been there yet to see it."

"It is," Vyndra said. "And what else do you know of Vendhya before you
have been there?"

"Vendhyans make carpets," he said, slapping the one beneath the
cushions, "and they perfume their wine and their women alike."

"What else?" she giggled.

"Women from the purdhana are shamed by baring their faces but not by
baring anything else." That brought an outright laugh, though the edges
of a blush showed about Alyna's veil. Conan liked Vyndra's laughter,
but he was already tired of the sport. "Beyond that, Vendhya seems to
be famous for spies and assassins."

Both women gasped as one, and Vyndra's face paled. "I lost my father to
the Katari. As did Alyna."

"The Katari?"

"The assassins for which Vendhya is so famous. You mean you did not
even know the name?" Vyndra shook her head and shuddered. "They kill,
sometimes for gold, sometimes for whim it seems, but always the death
is dedicated to the vile goddess Katar."

"That name I have heard," he said, "somewhere."

Vyndra sniffed. "No doubt on the lips of a man. It is a favorite oath
of Vendhyan men. No woman would be so foolish as to call on one
dedicated to endless death and carnage."

She was clearly shaken, and he could sense her withdrawing into
herself. Frantically he sought another topic, one fit for a woman's
ears. One of her poets would no doubt compose a verse on the spot, he
thought bitterly, but all the verse he knew was set to music, and most
of it would made a trull blush.

"A man of your country did say something out of the ordinary to me
today," he said slowly, and latched on to the one remark out of several
that would bear repeating. "He thought my eyes marked me as demonspawn.
A pan-kur, he called it. You obviously do not believe it, else you'd
have run screaming rather than inviting me to drink your wine."

"I might believe it," she said, "if I had not talked to learned men who
told me of far-off lands where the men are all giants with eyes like
sapphires. And I rarely run screaming from anything." A small smile had
returned to play on her lips. "Of course, if you actually claim to be a
pan-kur, I would never doubt the man who calls himself Patil."

Conan flushed slightly. Everyone seemed to know the name was not his,
but he could not bring himself to say that he had lied about it. "I
have fought demons," he said, "but I am none of their breed."

"You have fought demons?" Vyndra exclaimed. "Truly? I saw demons once,
a score of them, but I cannot imagine anyone actually fighting one, no
matter what the legends say."

"You saw a score of demons?" Despite his own experience seemingly to
the contrary, Conan was aware that demons-and wizards, for that
matter-were not so thick on the ground as most people imagined. It was
just that he had bad luck in the matter, though Hordo insisted it was a
curse. "A score in one place?"

Vyndra's dark eyes flashed. "You do not believe me? Many others were
there. Five years ago in the palace of King Bhandarkar, he who was then
the court wizard, Zail Bal, was carried off in full view of scores of
people. The demons were rajaie, which drink the life from their
victims. You see, I know whereof I speak."

"Did I say I did not believe you?" Conan asked. He would believe in
twenty demons in one place-much less anyone escaping alive from that
place-when he saw it, but he hoped devoutly that his luck was never
quite that bad.

A small crease appeared between Vyndra's brows, as though she doubted
his sincerity. "If you have truly fought demons-and you see I do not
question your claim-then you must certainly stay at my palace in
Ayodhya. Why, perhaps even Naipal would come to meet a man who has
fought demons. What a triumph that would be!"

It might have sounded promising, he thought ruefully, if not for this
other man. "Do you wish me there, or this Naipal?"

"I want both of you, of course. Think of the wonderment. You, a huge
warrior, obviously from a land shrouded in distance and mystery, a
fighter against demons. He, the court wizard of Vendhya, the-"

"A wizard," Conan breathed heavily. Hordo would believe he had done
this apurpose, or else he would mutter about the curse.

"I said that," Vyndra said. "He is the most mysterious man in Vendhya.
No more than a handful other than King Bhandarkar, and perhaps Karim
Singh, know his face. Women have arranged assignations with him merely
in the hope they might be able to say they could recognize him."

"I have never met the man," he said, "nor intend to, yet I do not like
him."

Her laugh was low and wicked. "He keeps the assignations, too, with
those women pretty enough. They are gone for days and return on the
point of exhaustion with stories of passion beyond belief, but when
they are asked of his features, they grow vague. The visage they
describe could belong to any handsome man. Still, the transports of
rapture they speak of are such that I myself have considered-"

With a curse Conan hurled the golden goblet aside. Vyndra squeaked as
he pounced, catching her face between his hands. "I do not want you to
attract some sorcerer," he told her heatedly. "I do not want you
because you are from a country distant from mine or because you would
seem strange to the people of my land. I want you because you are a
beautiful woman and you make my blood burn." There was invitation on
her face and when he kissed her, she tangled her hands in his hair as
though it were she who held him, not the reverse.

When at last she snuggled against his chest with a sigh, there was a
mischievous twinkle in her big dark eyes, and small white teeth
indented her full lower lip. "Do you intend to take me now?" she asked
softly and then added as he growled in his throat, "With Alyna
watching?"

Conan did not take his eyes from her face. "She is still here?"

"Alyna is faithful to me in her fashion and rarely leaves my side."

"And you do not intend to send her away." It was not a question.

"Would you have me separated from my faithful tirewoman?" Vyndra asked
with a wide-eyed smile.

Clearing his throat, Conan got to his feet. Alyna was there, bright
eyes glinting with amusement above her veil. "I have half a mind," he
said conversationally, "to switch both your rumps till you have to be
tied across your saddles like bolts of silk. Instead, I think I will
see if there is an honest trull in this caravan, for your games bore
me."

He stalked out on that, thinking he had quieted her, but laughing words
followed him before he let the tent flap fall. "You are a violent man,
O one who calls himself Patil. You will be a wonderment to my friends."


Chapter XV

There were panderers on the outskirts of the encampment, as Conan had
known there would be in a caravan so large and going so far. Two of
them. Karim Singh might have his own women along, as would the Vendhyan
noblemen and even many of the merchants; but for the rest-for guards
and camel drivers and mule handlers-from Khawarism to Secunderam was a
long way without a woman. Except for the panderers.

They had set out tables made of planks laid on barrels before their
tents, with casks to sit on and drink while a man waited his turn for
the use of the tents. Cheap wine they gave away to those who bought
their other merchandise, sour wine served by sweet women, slender jades
and voluptuous trulls, tall wenches and short. Soft, willing flesh. If
the gilded brass girdles low on their hips and their strips of
diaphanous silk were more than a purdhana dancer wore, all could be
removed for a coin, for women were the goods sold here.

And yet, Conan realized, it was not a woman he wanted. He sat on an
upended keg before the second panderer's tents, a leathern jack of thin
wine in his fist, a slender wench wiggling on his knee as she bit at
his neck with small white teeth. He could not pretend disinterest in
her, but she seemed a distraction, if a pleasant one. A buxom jade at
the first panderer's tent had been the same. Though he was not yet
twenty, he had long since learned to curb his anger when need be, but
on that day he had held it in check with Karim Singh and lashed it down
with Kandar. And then there had been Vyndra. Now he wanted to loose the
rage, to strike out at something. He wanted one of the other men
fondling a woman to challenge him for the doxy on his lap, or two, or
five. Hammering fists, even bloody steel, would drain the anger coiled
in his belly like a serpent dripping venom from its fangs.

The slender trull snuggled against him contentedly as he stood with her
in his arms, then stared at him in consternation when he plopped her
bottom onto the keg. "I am not a Vendhyan," he told her, dropping coins
in her hands. "I do not take out my anger on others than those who have
earned it." Her look was one of total uncomprehension, but he spoke for
his own benefit as much as hers.

The raucous laughter of the panderers' tents followed him into the
encampment. Many of the merchants' tents were darkened now, and silence
lay even on the picket lines of animals behind each, though the thin
sounds of zither and flute, cithern and tambor, drifted from the
nobles' portion of the camp. Sleep, he thought. Sleep, then journey on
the morrow, then sleep again and journey again. The antidote would be
found in Vendhya, and the answers he sought would come, but he would
dissipate the tightness of anger with sleep.

The fire burned low in front of the lone tent shared by Kang Hou and
his nieces. A Khitan servant poking the embers was all that moved among
the blanket-wrapped shapes of smugglers scattered about the merchant's
tent. But Conan stopped short of the dim light of that fire, a jangling
in the back of his head that he recognized as a warning that something
was wrong.

His ears strained for sounds below normal hearing, and his eyes sought
the shadows between the other tents. The sounds were all about him now
that he listened. The rasp of leather on leather, the soft clink of
metal, the pad of softly placed feet. Shadows shifted where they should
be still.

"Hordo!" Conan roared, broadsword coming into his hand. "Up, or die in
your blankets!" Before the warning was past his lips, smugglers were
rolling to their feet with swords in hand. And Vendhyans as well, afoot
and mounted, were upon them.

To attempt to make his way to his companions was madness, the Cimmerian
knew. They did not fight to hold a piece of ground but to escape, and
every man would be seeking to break through the ring of steel. He had
no time for thought on the matter. He had killed one man and was
crossing swords with a second by the time he shouted the last word.

Jerking his blade free of the second corpse, he all but decapitated
another Vendhyan, searching all the while for his path to freedom,
ignoring the screams and clanging steel around him as he fought his way
away from the Khitan's tent. A turban-helmed horseman appeared in front
of him, lance gone but tulwar lifted to slash. The Vendhyan's fierce,
killing grin turned to shock as Conan leaped to grapple with him.
Unable to use his sword so close, the horseman beat at Conan with the
hilt as the horse danced in circles. The big Cimmerian could not use
his broadsword either, merely wrapping that arm about the Vendhyan, but
his dagger quickly slid between the metal plates of the brigantine
hauberk. The horseman screamed, and again as he was toppled from the
saddle. Then Conan was scrambling into the other's place, seizing the
reins and slamming his heels into the horse's flanks.

The calvary-trained animal burst into a gallop, and Conan, lying low in
the saddle, guided it between the tents. Merchants and their servants,
roused by the tumult, jumped shouting from the path of the speeding
rider. Suddenly there was a man who did not leap aside, a caravan guard
who dropped to one knee and planted the base of his spear. The horse
shrieked as the long blade thrust into its chest, and abruptly Conan
was flying over the crumpling animal's head. All of the breath was
driven from him by the fall, yet the Cimmerian struggled to rise. The
guard rushed in for an easy kill of the man on his knees, tulwar raised
high. With what seemed his last particle of strength, Conan drove his
sword into the other's chest. The force of the man's charge carried him
into the big Cimmerian, knocking him over. Still fighting for breath,
Conan pushed the man away, extricated his blade, and staggered into the
shadows. Half-falling, he pressed his back against a tent.

Wakened merchants shouted on all sides. "What happens?"

"Are we attacked?"

"Bandits!"

"My goods!"

Vendhyan soldiers shoved the merchants aside, beating at them with the
butts of their lances. "Go back to your tents!" was their cry. "We seek
spies! Go back to your tents, and you will not be harmed! Anyone
outside will be arrested!"

Spies, Conan thought. He had found his fight, but there was yet a
trickle of his previous anger remaining, a trickle growing stronger.
Moments before, escape from the encampment had been paramount in his
mind. Now he thought he would first visit the man who considered all
foreigners spies.

Like a hunting leopard, the big Cimmerian flowed from shadow to shadow,
blending with the dark. Curious eyes were easily avoided, for there
were few abroad now. No one moved between the tents save soldiers,
announcing their coming with creak of harness and clink of armor and
curses that they must search when they would be sleeping. Silently
Conan moved into deeper shadows as the Vendhyans appeared, watching
with a feral grin as they marched or rode past him, sometimes within
arm's reach, yet always unseeing.

Karim Singh's tent glowed with light within, and two fires blazed high
before the canopied entrance. The fires made the dim light filtered
through golden silk at the rear seem almost as dark as the surrounding
light. A score of Vendhyan cavalry sat their horses like statues in a
ring about the tent, facing outward, ten paces at least separating each
man from the next.

Like statues they were in truth, or else thought they guarded against
attack by an army, for on his belly Conan crawled unseen between two at
the rear of the tent. As he prepared to slit an entrance in the back
wall of the tent with his dagger, voices from inside stopped him.

"Leave us," commanded Karim Singh.

Conan opened a small slit only, parting it with his fingers. A last
Vendhyan soldier was bowing himself from the silk-walled chamber
within. Karim Singh stood in the middle of the chamber, a cavalryman's
sword in his hand, and before him knelt a Vendhyan bound hand and foot.
The kneeling man wore the robes of a merchant, though they hardly
seemed consistent with his hard face and the long scar that crossed his
nose and cheek.

"You are called Sabah?" the wazam asked in an easy tone.

"I am Amaur, Excellency, an honest merchant," the kneeling man said,
"and even you have no right to simply seize my goods without cause."
The harsh, rasping voice made Conan stiffen in memory. The rider in the
dunes. He would listen for a while before killing Karim Singh.

The wazam set the point of his sword against the other's throat. "You
are called Sabah?"

"My name is Amaur, Excellency. I know no one called-" The kneeling man
gasped as the point pressed closer, bringing a trickle of blood. "An
honest merchant?" Karim Singh laughed softly. As he spoke, he increased
the pressure of the blade. The kneeling man leaned back but the sword
point followed. "Within the bales of silk you carry were found chests
sealed with lead. You are a smuggler, at least. Who are the chests
destined for?"

With a cry, the prisoner toppled. From his back he stared with bulging
eyes. The sword still was at his throat and there was no farther he
could go to escape it. The hardness of his face had become a mask of
fear. "I ... I cannot say, Excellency. Before Asura, I swear it!"

"You will say or you will face Asura shortly. Or, more likely, Katar."
The wazam's voice became conspiratorial. "I know the name, Amaur. I
know. But I must hear it from your lips if you would live. Speak,
Amaur, and live."

"Excellency, he ... he will kill me. Or worse!"

"I will kill you, Amaur. This sword is at your throat, here, and he is
far away. Speak!"

"N ... Naipal!" the man sobbed. "Naipal, Excellency!"

"Good," Karim Singh said soothingly. But he did not move the sword.
"You see how easy it was. Now. Why? Tell me why he wants these chests."

"I cannot, Excellency." Tears rolled down Amaur's cheeks now and he
shook with weeping. "Before Asura, before Katar, I would tell you if I
could, but I know nothing! We were to meet the ship, kill all on board
and bring the chests to Ayodhya. Perhaps Sabah knew more, but he is
dead. I swear, Excellency! I speak truly, I swear!"

"I believe you," Karim Singh sighed. "It is a pity." And he leaned on
the sword.

Amaur's attempt to scream became a bubbling gurgle as steel slid
through his throat. Karim Singh stared at him as though fascinated by
the blood welling up in his mouth and the convulsions that wracked his
bound form. Abruptly the wazam released the sword. It remained upright,
its point thrust through man and carpets into the ground, shaking with
Amaur's final twitching.

"Guards!" Karim Singh called, and Conan lowered the dagger with which
he had been about to lengthen the slit. "Guards!"

Half a score of Vendhyans rushed into the chamber with drawn blades.
Staring at the sight that greeted them, they hastily sheathed their
weapons.

"The other spies," the wazam said. "The giant, in particular. He has
been taken? He cannot be mistaken, for his size and his eyes set him
apart."

"No, Excellency," one of the soldiers replied deferentially. "Four of
that party are dead, but not the giant. We seek the others."

"So he is still out there." Karim Singh spoke as though to himself. "He
seemed a stark man. A slaver born. He will seek me now." He shook
himself and glared at the soldiers as if angered that they had
overheard. "He must be found! A thousand pieces of gold to the man who
finds him. All of you, and ten others, will remain with me until he is
dead or in chains. And he who does not die stopping the barbarian from
reaching me will die wishing that he had. Have someone dispose of
this," he added with a nod toward Amaur's corpse.

The wazam strode from the chamber then, the guards clustering about
him, and Conan sagged where he crouched outside. Against a score of
guards he might not even reach Karim Singh before he was cut down. He
had known men who embraced a brave but useless death; he was not one of
them. Death was an old acquaintance to him and had been long before he
found himself with Patil's poison in his blood. Death was neither to be
feared nor sought, and when he met it, the meeting would not be without
purpose. Besides, he now had a name, Naipal, the man who had begun all
of this. That was another who must die as well as Karim Singh.

Silently Conan slipped back into the night.


Chapter XVI

A horse and a water bag were what he needed now, Conan knew. In this
land a man afoot and without water was a man dying or dead. There were
far more camels than horses in the caravan, however, and many of the
horses were animals suitable for show but not for a man who needed to
travel far and fast. Moreover, word of the reward must have been
spreading quickly, for the soldiers were now more assiduous in their
searching. Twice he located suitable mounts only to be forced to
abandon them by turban-helmed patrols.

Finally he found himself in the nobles' portion of the encampment. Most
of the tents were dark and the silence was as complete as in the
merchants' part. He wondered if the soldiers had been as brusque here
in quieting curiosity as they had been with the merchants.

Something moved in the darkness, a shadow heaving, and he froze. A
grunt came from the shadow, and the rattle of a chain. Conan peered
more closely and then stifled a laugh. It was Vyndra's dancing bear. On
sudden impulse, he drew his dagger. The bear, sitting in a sprawl, eyed
him as he cautiously approached. It did not move as he sawed at the
leather collar about its neck.

"It is a harsh land," he whispered, "with many ways to die." He felt
foolish in talking to an animal, but there was a need, too. "You may
find hunters or stronger bears. If you do not run far enough, they will
chain you again and make you dance for Vyndra. The choice is yours, to
die free or to dance for your mistress."

The bear stared at him as the collar fell loose, and he held the dagger
ready. Just because it had not attacked him so far did not mean it
would not, and the shaggy creature was half again as large as he.
Slowly the bear got to its feet and lumbered into the dark.

"Better to die free," Conan grinned after the beast. "And I say I saw
something move."

Conan stiffened at the words, cursing his impulses. "Take ten men
around the other way and we will see."

In an instant the Cimmerian's blade made a long slit in the tent wall
behind him, and he went through as footsteps rounded the tent. Within
was as deep a darkness as outside, though his keen eyes, already used
to the night, could make out shadowy shapes and mounds on the carpet
spread for flooring. The footsteps halted on the other side of the thin
wall, and voices muttered indistinguishably. One of the mounds moved.

Not again, Conan thought. Hoping it was not another bear, he threw
himself on the shifting shape. The grunt that came when he landed was
nothing at all like that of a bear. Soft flesh writhed against him
beneath a thin linen coverlet, and his hand frantically sought a mouth,
finding it just in time to stifle a scream. Bringing his face close, he
looked into big dark eyes filled with a mixture of fear and rage.

"Alyna is not here now, Vyndra," he whispered and moved his hand from
her lips.

As her mouth opened once more for a scream, he stuffed it with the ball
of her hair that he had gathered with his other hand. Quickly he felt
around the bed mat until he found a long silk scarf, which he tied
across her mouth to keep her from spitting the hair out. Bound and
gagged, he thought, she could raise no alarm until he was far away.
With luck, she would not be found until morning.

Stripping off the linen coverlet, he was forced to stop and stare. Even
when covered in shadows, the lush curves of her were enough to take his
breath away. He found it quickly, though, jerking his head back barely
in time to save his eyes from clawing nails.

"This time the sport is not of your choosing," he said softly, catching
her flailing arm and deftly flipping her onto her stomach. He found
another scarf and used it to bind her wrists behind her. "You may not
dance for me," he chuckled, "but this is almost as enjoyable." He felt
her quiver and did not need the angry, muffled sounds coming from
behind the gag to tell him it was with rage.

As he searched for something to tie her ankles with, he became aware of
voices in the front of the tent. Hastily he dragged his struggling
prisoner closer to where he could listen.

"Why do you wish to see my mistress?" came Alyna's voice. "She sleeps."

A man answered with weary patience. "The wazam has learned that your
mistress entertained a spy earlier tonight. He would talk with her of
it."

"Can it not wait until morning? She will be angry if she is wakened."
Conan did not wait to learn the outcome. If Vyndra was found now, the
soldiers would know he was close by before her gag was fully out of her
mouth. Half-carrying the wriggling woman, he darted to the rear of the
tent and peered cautiously through the slit by which he had entered.
The searchers were gone. It was possible they were even the same men
now in the front of the tent.

"I am sorry," he told her.

He was glad for the gag as he pulled her through the slit. The violent
protesting noises she made were bad enough as it was. Despite her
struggles, he lifted her into his arms, running as fast as he could
manage while making sure he did not speed into the midst of a patrol or
trip over tent ropes.

Well away from her tent, he put her on her feet, careful to keep a grip
on one slender arm. If they were discovered, he had to be able to fight
without being burdened with her. And there would be no need to prevent
her escape then.

Finding a horse was still his first concern, but when he tried to start
out again, he found he was dragging a bent-over, crouching woman who
seemed to be attempting to make herself as small as possible while
simultaneously refusing to move her feet.

"Stand up and walk," he said hoarsely, but she shook her head
furiously. "Crom, woman, I've no time to ogle your charms." She shook
her head again.

A quick look around revealed no evidence of anyone both near and awake.
All of the surrounding tents were dark. His full-armed swing landing on
her buttock produced a louder smack than he would have liked, not to
mention the sounds she produced, but it brought her onto her toes and
half-erect. When she tried to crouch again, he held his open hand in
front of her face.

"Walk," he whispered warningly.

Her glare was enough to slay lions, but slowly she straightened.
Without so much as a glance at the beauties she had revealed, he
hurried her on. He was not young enough to be a complete fool over a
woman.

Ghosting among the tents, they more than once barely avoided the
searching Vendhyan soldiers. At first Conan was surprised that Vyndra
made no effort to escape when the turban-helmed warriors were close,
nor even to attract them with noise or struggle. In fact, she had
become as silent as he, eyes constantly searching for what might trip
or betray. Then it came to him. Escaping him was one thing, being
rescued while garbed in naught but two scarves quite another. He smiled
gratefully, accepting anything that made his own escape easier.

Once more he was in the merchants' area, so deathly still that he knew
all there were huddled breathlessly, not daring to make a sound that
would attract the soldiers. A destination had come to his mind, a place
where there might be horses and a place the soldiers would not be
searching if he had but a particle of luck.

Movement in the shadows ahead again sent him to hiding, dragging a
compliant Vyndra behind. This was no patrol, he saw quickly, but a lone
man padding furtively. Slowly the shadow resolved into Kang Hou,
half-crouched with his hands in his sleeves. As Conan opened his mouth,
two more shapes appeared behind the first. Vendhyan cavalrymen, afoot
and carrying their lances like spears.

"Searching for something, Khitan?" one called.

Smoothly Kang Hou pivoted, hands flickering out of concealment.
Something flew through the air, and the two Vendhyans dropped
soundlessly. Hastily the merchant ran to crouch above the bodies.

"You are a dangerous man for a merchant," Conan said softly as he
stepped into the open.

Kang Hou spun, a throwing knife in each upraised hand, then slowly slid
the knives from sight within his sleeves.

"A merchant must often travel in dangerous company," he said blandly.
He ran his eyes over Vyndra and raised an eyebrow. "I have heard it
said that some warriors favor women above all other loot, but under
these circumstances, I find it strange."

"I do not want her," Conan said. Vyndra growled through her gag. "The
problem is, where can I leave her and be sure she'll not be found
before I have gotten a horse and left this place?"

"A quandary," the Khitan agreed. "You have considered where to find
this horse? The soldiers check the picket lines constantly and a
missing animal will not go long undiscovered."

"At the last place they will look for one of us," Conan replied. "The
picket line behind your tent."

Kang Hou smiled. "Admirable reasoning. Having led my original pursuers
a way from the encampment, I am now returning there. Will you accompany
me?"

"In but a moment. Hold her."

Thrusting Vyndra at the startled Khitan, Conan hurried to the dead
Vendhyans. Quickly he dragged them into the deeper darkness beside a
tent-no sense in leaving them to be easily found-and when he returned
to the others, he carried one of the soldiers' cloaks. Kang Hou wore a
small smile, and Vyndra's eyes were squeezed tightly shut.

"What happened?" the Cimmerian asked. He draped the cloak around the
woman as best he could with her hands bound. Her eyes flew open, giving
him a look of mingled surprise and gratitude.

"I'm not entirely certain," the merchant said, "but it seems that her
belief is that if she cannot see me, I cannot see her." Even in the
dark her blush at his words was evident.

"We have no time for foolishness," Conan said. "Come."

A thousand gold pieces was a powerful spur when added to the command of
a man such as Karim Singh, but even that spur lost its sharpness when
the searchers began to believe their quarry had already escaped from
the encamped caravan. Patrols of Vendhyans began to grow fewer, and
those who still hunted did so in desultory fashion. Many no longer even
went through the motions, gathering instead in easily avoided knots to
talk in low voices.

Short of the Khitan's camp Conan halted, still hidden in the darkness
among the other merchants' tents. Vyndra obeyed his grip on her arm
with seeming docility, but he maintained his hold. The fire was only
coals now, and bales of velvet lay ripped open among carpets unrolled
and scattered about. If anyone had died there-the Cimmerian remembered
the report to Karim Singh of four dead-their bodies had been taken
away. The picket line was only a murky mass but some of those shadows
moved in ways he did not like Kang Hou started forward, but Conan
caught his arm.

"Horses move even in the night," the Khitan whispered, "and the
soldiers would not hide. We must hurry."

Conan shook his head. Pursing his lips, he gave the call of a bird
found only on the plains of Zamora. For an instant there was silence,
then the call came back, from the picket line.

"Now we hurry," Conan said and ran for the horses, hauling Vyndra
behind him.

Hordo stepped out to meet him, motioning for greater quickness. "I
hoped you had made it, Cimmerian," he said hoarsely. "Hell has come to
sup, it seems." Two other shadows became men, Enam and Prytanis. "I
heard there are four dead," Conan said. "Who?"

"Baltis!" Prytanis spat. "The Vendhyan scum cut him to shreds. I said
you brought us all to our deaths."

"He followed me," Conan agreed, to the slit-nosed man's evident
surprise. "It is another debt I owe."

"Baltis died well," Hordo said, "and took an honor guard with him. A
man can ask no more of dying than that. The other three," he added to
the Khitan, "were your servants. I have not seen your nieces."

"My servants were not fighting men," Kang Hou sighed, "but I had hoped
... No matter. As for my nieces, Kuie Hsi will care for her sister as
well as I could. Might I suggest that we take horses and continue this
talk elsewhere?"

"A good suggestion," Conan said.

The stallion was still there; Conan had feared that such a fine mount
would have been taken by the Vendhyans. He heaved the saddle onto the
animal's back one-handed but fastening the girth would require two
hands. Giving Vyndra a warning look, he released her but kept a sharp
eye on her as he hastily strapped the saddle tight. To his surprise,
she did not move. No doubt, he thought, she still dreaded being found
clothed as she was, even if it did mean rescue.

"The wench," Hordo said curiously. "Do you have a purpose with her, or
is she just a token to remember this place by?"

"There is a purpose," Conan said, explaining why he could not leave her
yet. "It may be I must take her all the way to Vendhya with me, for I
doubt she'd survive long if I left her to make her own way on the
plain." He paused, then asked with more casualness than he felt, "What
of Ghurran?"

"I've not seen the old man since the attack," Hordo replied
regretfully. "I am sorry, Cimmerian."

"What is, is," Conan said grimly. "I must saddle a horse for the woman.
I fear you must ride astride, Vyndra, for we have no sidesaddle." She
merely stared at him, unblinking.

It was a silent procession that made its stealthy way through the tents
of the encampment, leading their horses. The animals could walk more
quietly without burdens, and they all would have been more noticeable
mounted. The Vendhyan patrols, half-hearted and noisy, might as well
not have been there. Conan, first in line, had the reins of his horse
and Vyndra's in one hand and her arm firmly in the other. Discovery
would end the need for keeping her, as he was sure she must know, and
he was not about to trust the odd passivity she had shown so far.

The edge of the caravan encampment appeared before him, and ingrained
caution made him signal a halt. Prytanis began to speak, but Conan
angrily motioned him to silence. There was a faint noise, almost too
low to hear. The soft tread of horses. Perhaps all of the Vendhyans had
not given up on the hunt.

A glance told Conan the others had heard as well. Swords were in
hand-Kang Hou held one of his throwing knives-and each man had moved
alongside his horse to be ready to mount. The Cimmerian tensed, ready
to heave Vyndra aside to relative safety and vault into his saddle, as
the other horses appeared.

Five animals were in the other party as well, and Conan almost laughed
with relief when he saw those leading the beasts. Shamil and Hasan,
each with a protective arm about one of Kang Hou's nieces, and old
Ghurran hobbling in the rear.

"It is good to see you," Conan called softly.

The two younger men spun, clawing for their swords. Hasan was somewhat
hampered by Chin Kou clutching at him, but Kuie Hsi came up with a
knife poised to throw. A dangerous family, the Cimmerian thought.
Ghurran merely watched expressionessly as though no fear remained in
him.

The two groups joined, everyone attempting whispered conversation, but
Conan silenced them with a hiss. "We talk when we are safe," he told
them softly, "and that is far from here." Lifting Vyndra into her
saddle, he adjusted the soldier's cloak to give her a modicum of
decency. "I will find you something to wear," he promised. "Perhaps you
will dance for me yet." She stared at him above the gag, the expression
in her eyes unreadable.

As Conan swung into his own saddle, a wave of dizziness swept over him,
and he had to clutch the high pommel to keep from falling. Ghurran was
at his side in an instant. "I'll compound the potion as soon as I can,"
the old herbalist said. "Hang on."

"I've no intention of anything else," Conan managed through gritted
teeth. Leading Vyndra's horse by the reins, he kneed his own mount to
motion, into the night toward Vendhya. He would not let go.

There were debts to pay, and two men to kill first.


Chapter XVII

Naipal looked at the man facing him, a thin, hard-eyed Vendhyan who
could have been a soldier, and wondered at what motivated him. Neither
personal gain nor power seemed to impress the other man. He showed no
signs of love or hate or pride, nor of any other emotion. It made the
wizard uneasy, confronting a man who exposed so little by which he
might be manipulated.

"You understand, then?" Naipal said. "When Bhandarkar is dead, the
oppression will end. Shrines to Karat will be allowed in every city."

"Have I not said that I understand?" the nameless representative of the
Katari asked quietly.

They were alone in the round chamber, its shallow-domed ceiling a
bas-relief of ancient heroes. Golden lamps on the walls gave soft
illumination. No food or drink had been brought, for the Katari would
not eat in the dwelling of one who invoked the services of his cult.
They stood because the Katari did, and the wizard did not want the
other looming over him. A standing man had the advantages of height and
position over a seated man.

"You have not said it will be done." Naipal was hard pressed to keep
irritation out of his voice. There was so much to be done this day, but
this part was as important as any and must be handled delicately.

Along with the other things that did not impress or affect one of the
Katari was the power of a sorcerer. Spells could destroy a Katari as
quickly as any other man, but that meant little to one who believed to
his core that death, however it came, meant instantly being taken to
the side of his goddess. It all gave the wizard an ache in his temples.

"It will be done," the Katari said. "In return for what you have
promised, Bhandarkar, even on his throne, will be dedicated to the
goddess. But if the promises are not kept . . ."

Naipal ignored the threat. That was an aspect he could deal with later.
He certainly had no intention of giving additional power to a cult that
could, and assuredly would, undermine him. The khorassani could
certainly protect him against the assassin's knife. Or a bodyguard of
resurrected warriors from King Orissa's tomb.

"You understand also," the wizard said, "that the deed must be done
when I signal it? Not before. Not an hour before."

"Have I not said that I understand?" the other repeated.

Naipal sighed. The Katari had the reputation of killing in their own
time and their own way, but even if Bhandarkar had not protected
himself against spells, there could be nothing of sorcery connected
with his death. The appearance of clean hands would be essential to
Naipal, for he wanted a land united willingly under the supposed
leadership of Karim Singh, not one ravaged by opposition and war. And
who would believe a wizard would use the Katari when he could slay so
easily by other means?

"Very well," Naipal said. "At my sign, Bhandarkar is to die by Katari
knives, on his throne, in full view of his nobles and advisers."

"Bhandarkar will die."

With that Naipal had to be satisfied. He offered the Katari a purse of
gold, and the man took it with neither change of expression nor word of
gratitude. It would go to the coffers of the Katari, the wizard knew,
and so was no cord to bind the fellow, but habit made him try.

When the assassin was gone. Naipal paused only to fetch the golden
coffer containing the demon-wrought dagger, then made his way hurriedly
to the gray-domed chamber far below the palace. The resurrected warrior
stood his ceaseless vigil against a wall, unsleeping, untiring. Naipal
did not look at him. The newness was gone, and what was a single
warrior to the numbers he would raise from the dead?

Straight to the ivory chest he went, unhesitatingly throwing back the
lid and brushing aside the silken coverings. In the mirror there was a
single campfire, seen from a great height. For seven days the mirror
had shown a fire by night and a small party of riders by day, first on
the plains beyond the Himelias, now in the very mountains themselves.
Almost out of them, in fact. They moved more slowly than was necessary.
It had taken some time for him to realize that they actually followed
the caravan bringing the chests to him. Salvation and potential
disaster would arrive together.

Seven days of seeing the proof of Karim Singh's failure had taken much
of the sting away though. It no longer affected him as it had, watching
possible doom approach. In truth, except for the pain behind his eyes
that had come while talking to the Katari, Naipal felt almost numb. So
much to do, he thought as he closed the box, and so little time
remaining. The strain was palpable. But he would win, as he always did.

Moving quickly, he arranged the khorasrani on their golden tripods. The
incantations of power were spoken. Fires brighter than the sun leaped
and flared and formed a cage. The summoning was cried and with a
thunderous clap, Masrok floated before him in the bound void, weapons
glowing in five of its eight obsidian fists.

"It is long, O man," the demon cried angrily, "since you have summoned
me. Have you not felt the stone pulse against your flesh?"

"I have been busy. Perhaps I did not notice." Days since, Naipal had
removed the black opal from about his neck to escape that furious
throbbing. Masrok had to be allowed to ripen. "Besides, you yourself
said that time did not matter to one such as you."

Masrok's huge form quivered as though on the point of leaping at the
fiery barriers constraining it. "Be not a fool, O man! Within the
limits of my prison have I been confined, and only its empty vastness
on levels beyond your knowing has saved me. My other selves know that
one of the Sivani's no more! How long can I flee them?"

"Perhaps there is no need to flee them. Perhaps your day of freedom is
close, leaving those others bound for eternity. Bound away from you as
well as from the world."

"How, O man? When?"

Naipal smiled as he did when a man brought to hopeless despair by his
maneuverings displayed the first cracks before shattering. "Give me the
location of King Orissa's tomb," he said quietly. "Where lies the
centuries-lost city of Maharastra?"

"No!" The word echoed ten thousand times as Masrok spun into an ebon
blur, and the burning walls of its cage howled with the demon's rage.
"I will never betray! Never!"

The wizard sat, silent and waiting, until the fury had quieted. "Tell
me, Masrok," he commanded.

"Never, O man! Many times have I told you there are limits to your
binding of me. Take the dagger that I gave you and strike at me. Slay
me, O man, if that is your wish. But I will never betray that secret."

"Never?" Naipal tilted his head quizzically, and the cruel smile
returned to his lips. "Perhaps not." He touched the golden coffer, but
only for an instant. "I will not slay you, however. I will only send
you back and leave you there for all of time."

"What foolishness is this, O man?"

"I will not send you back to those levels vaster than my mind can know,
but to that prison you share with your remaining other selves. Can even
a demon know fear if its pursuers are also demons? I can only slay you,
Masrok. Will they slay you when at last they overtake you? Or can
demons devise tortures for demons? Will they kill you, or will you
continue to live, to live until the end of time under tortures that
will make you remember your prison as the most sublime of paradises?
Well, Masrok?"

The huge demon stared at him malevolently, unblinking, unmoving. Yet
Naipal knew. Were Masrok a man, that man would be licking his lips and
sweating. He knew!

"My freedom, O man?" the demon said at last. "Free of serving you as
well?"

"When the tomb is located," Naipal replied, "and the army buried there
is within my grasp, you will have your freedom. With, of course, a
binding spell to make certain you can neither harm nor hinder me in the
future."

"Of course," Masrok said slowly.

The part about the binding spell was perfect, Naipal thought. A concern
for his own future safety was certain to convince the demon he meant to
go through with the bargain.

"Very well, O man. The ruins of Maharastra lie ten leagues to the west
of Gwandiakan, swallowed ages past by the Forests of Ghendai." Victory!
Naipal wanted to jump to his feet and dance. Gwandiakan! It must be an
omen, for the first city at which Karim Singh's caravan would rest once
across the Himelias was Gwandiakan. He must contact the wazam with the
scrying glass. He would race to meet the chests there and go
immediately to the tomb. But no wonder the ruins had never been found.
No road had ever been seen through the Forests of Ghendai, and few had
ever tried to cut its tall trees for their wood. Huge swarms of tiny,
stinging flies drove men mad and those who escaped the flies succumbed
to a hundred different fevers that wracked the body with pain before
they killed. Some men would rather die than enter those forests.

"Maps," he said suddenly. "I will need maps so my men will not go
astray. You will draw them for me."

"As you command, O man."

The demon's weary defeat was triumphal music to Naipal's ears.


Chapter XVIII

From the hills overlooking Gwandiakan, Conan stared at the city in
amazement. Alabaster towers and golden domes and columned temples atop
tiered, man-made hills of stone spread in vast profusion, surrounded by
a towering stone wall leagues in circumference.

"'Tis bigger than Sultanapur," Enam said in awe.

"'Tis bigger than Sultanapur and Aghrapur together," Hordo said. Kang
Hou and his nieces seemed to take the city's size as a matter of
course, while Hasan and Shamil had eyes only for the Khitan women. "You
judge by the smallness of your own lands," Vyndra mocked. She sat her
horse unbound, for Conan had seen no reason to keep her tied once they
were away from the caravan. She wore robes of green silk from bundles
of clothing the Khitan women had gathered for themselves. They were
smaller women than she, and the tightness of her current garb
delineated her curves to perhaps greater perfection than she might have
wished. "Many cities in Vendhya are as large or larger," she went on.
"Why, Ayodhya is three times so great."

"Are we to sit here all day?" Ghurran demanded grumpily. As the others
had grown tired with journeying, the herbalist had seemed to gain
energy, but all of it went to irritability.

Prytanis jumped in with still nastier tones. "What of this palace she
has been telling us of? After days of living on what we can snare, with
naught to drink but water, I look forward to wine and delicacies served
by a willing wench. Especially as the Cimmerian wants to keep this one
for himself."

Vyndra's face colored, but she merely said, "I will take you there."

Conan let her take the lead, though he kept his horse close behind hers
as they wended their way out of the hills. He was far from sure of what
to make of the Vendhyan woman or her actions. She had made no attempt
to escape and ride to the caravan, even when she knew it was just out
of sight ahead of them, with a plain trail showing the way. And he
often caught her watching him, a strange, unreadable look in her dark
eyes. He had made no advances to her, for it seemed wrong after he had
carried her away bodily. She would see a threat behind any words he
might say, and she had done nothing to earn that. So he watched her in
turn, uneasily, wondering when this strange calm she affected would
end.

Their way led toward the city for only a short time, then turned to the
west. Before they came out of the hills, Conan could see many palaces
in that direction, great blocks of pale, columned marble gleaming in
the sun in the midst of open spaces scattered over leagues of forest to
the north and south. Still farther to the west, the trees grew taller,
and there were no palaces there that he could see.

Suddenly the trees through which they rode were gone, and before them
was a huge structure of ivory spires and alabaster domes, with rising
terraces of fluted columns and marble stairs at the front a hundred
paces wide. On each side was a long pool bordered by broad marble walks
and reflecting the palace in its mirror-smooth waters.

As they rode toward the great expanse of deep-run stairs, Vyndra spoke
suddenly. "Once Gwandiakan was a favored summer resort of the court,
but many came to fear the fevers of the forests to the west. I have not
been here since I was a child, but I know there are a few servants
still, so perhaps it is habitable." She bounced from her saddle and
bounded up the broad stairs, needing two paces to a single stairstep.

Conan climbed down from his horse more slowly, and Hordo with him.
"Does she play some Vendhyan game with us?" the one-eyed man asked.

Conan shook his head silently; he was as uncertain as his friend.
Abruptly a score of men in white turbans and pale cotton tunics
appeared at the head of the stairs. The Cimmerian's hand went to his
sword, but the men ignored those at the foot of the stair and bent
themselves almost double bowing to Vyndra, murmuring words that did not
quite reach Conan's ear.

Vyndra turned back to the others. "They remember me. It is as I feared.
There are only a few servants, and the palace is much deteriorated, but
we may find some bare comforts."

"I know the comforts I want," Prytanis announced loudly. "The three
prettiest wenches I can find. Strip them all and I'll choose."

"My serving women are to be gently treated," Vyndra said angrily.

"You forget you are a prisoner, wench!" the slit-nosed man snarled.
"Were the Cimmerian not here, I would-"

"But I am here," Conan said in hard tones. "And if she wants her
serving girls treated gently, then you will treat them like your own
sisters."

Prytanis met the Cimmerian's iron gaze for only a moment, then his dark
eyes slid away. "There are tavern wenches in the city, I'll wager," he
muttered. "Or do you wish them treated like sisters as well?"

"Have a care if you go into the city," Conan told him. "Remember,
foreigners are all considered spies in this land."

"I can look after myself," the Nemedian growled. Sawing at the reins,
he jerked his horse around and galloped off in the direction of
Gwandiakan.

"Another must go as well," Conan said as he watched Prytanis disappear.
"I'd not trust him to discover what we must know, but information is
needed. The caravan entered the city, but how long will it remain? And
what does Karim Singh do? Hordo, you see that none of Vyndra's servants
run off to tell of strangers here. There has been nothing to indicate
Karim Singh knows we follow, so let us see that that does not change. I
will go into-"

"Your pardon," Kang Hou broke in. "It will take long for an obvious
outlander such as yourself to learn anything of interest, for talk will
die in your presence. On the other hand, my niece, Kuie Hsi, has often
passed as a Vendhyan woman in aid of my business. If she can obtain the
proper clothing here . . ."

"I cannot like sending a woman in my place," Conan said but the Khitan
only smiled.

"I assure you I would not send her if I thought the danger were too
great for her."

Conan looked at Kuie Hsi, standing straight and serene beside Shamil.
In her embroidered robes she looked plainly Khitan, but with her dusky
coloring and the near lack of an epicanthic fold on her eyes, it seemed
barely possible. "Very well," he said reluctantly. "But she is only to
look and listen. Asking questions could draw the wrong eyes to her and
I'll not let her take that chance."

"I will tell her of your concern," the merchant said.

Servants came-silent turbaned men bowing as they took away the horses,
even more deeply bowing men and women, smiling as they proffered silver
goblets of cool wine and golden trays with damp towels for dusty hands
and faces.

A round-faced, swarthy man appeared before Conan, bobbing quick bows as
he spoke. "I am Punjar, master, steward of the palace. My mistress has
commanded me to see personally to your wishes."

Conan looked for Vyndra and could not see her. The servants made a
milling mass about the Cimmerian's party on the stairs, asking how they
might serve, speaking of baths and beds. Momentary thoughts of devious
traps flitted through his mind. But Kang Hou was following a serving
girl in one direction while his nieces were led in another and Conan
had few remaining doubts of the merchant's ability to avoid a snare.
Ghurran, he saw, had retained his horse.

"Do you mistrust this place, herbalist?" Conan asked.

"Less than you, apparently. Of course she is both a woman and a
Vendhyan, which means that she will either guard you with her life or
kill you in your sleep." Days in the open had darkened and weathered
the old man's skin, making it less parchmentlike, and his teeth gleamed
whitely as he grinned at Conan's discomfort. "I intend to ride into
Gwandiakan. It is possible I might find the ingredients for your
antidote there."

"That old man," Hordo grumbled as the herbalist rode away, "seems to
live on sunlight and water, like a tree. I do not think he even
sleeps."

"You merely grow jealous as you catch up to him in age," Conan said and
laughed as the one-eyed man scowled into his beard.

The corridors through which Punjar led him made the Cimmerian wonder at
Vyndra's comment that the palace was barely habitable. The varicolored
carpets scattered on polished marble floors, the great tapestries
lining the walls, were finer than any he had seen in palaces in Nemedia
or Zamora, lands noted in the West for their luxury. Golden lamps set
with amethyst and opal hung on silver chains from ceilings painted with
scenes of ancient heroes and leopard hunts and fanciful winged
creatures. Cunningly wrought ornaments of delicate crystal and gold sat
on tables of ebony and ivory inlaid with turquoise and silver.

The baths were pools mosaicked. in geometric patterns, but among the
multi-hued marble tiles were others of agate and lapis lazuli. The
waters were warm in one pool, cool in another, and veiled serving girls
in their servant's pristine white scurried to pour perfumed oils into
the water, to bring him soaps and soft toweling. He kept his broadsword
close at hand, moving it from the side of one pool to the side of the
next as he changed temperatures, and this set the women twittering
softly to one another behind their veils. He ignored their shocked
looks; to disarm himself was to show more trust than he could muster.
Refusing the elaborate silken robes-including, he saw with some
amusement, the long lengths of silk to wind into a turban-that they
brought to replace his dusty, travel-stained garb, Conan chose out a
plain tunic of dark blue and belted on his sword over that. Punjar
appeared again, bowing deeply.

"If you will follow me, master?" The round-faced man seemed nervous and
Conan kept a hand on his sword-hilt as he motioned the other to lead.

The chamber to which Conan was taken had a high vaulted ceiling and
narrow columns worked in elaborate gilded frescoes. Surely such columns
were too thin to be meant for support. At the top of the walls
intricate latticework had been cut in the marble; the scrolled openings
were tiny, Conan noted, but perhaps still large enough for a crossbow
bolt.

The floor, of crimson and white diamond-shaped tile of marble, was
largely bare, though a profusion of silken cushions was scattered to
one side. Placed beside the cushions were low tables of hammered brass
bearing golden trays of dates and figs, a ruby-studded golden goblet
and a tall crystal flagon of wine. Conan wondered if it were poisoned
and then almost laughed aloud at the thought of poisoning a man already
dying of poison.

"Pray be seated, master," Punjar said, gesturing to the cushions. Conan
lowered himself but demanded, "Where is Vyndra,"

"My mistress rests from her travels, master, but she has commanded an
entertainment for you. My mistress begs that you excuse her absence,
and begs also that you remember her request that her serving women be
treated gently." Bowing once more, he was gone.

Abruptly music floated from the latticework near the ceiling-the thrum
of citherns, the piping of flutes, the rhythmic thump of tambours.
Three women darted into the room with quick, tiny steps to stand in the
center of the bare floor. Only their hands and feet were not covered by
thick layers of many-colored silk, and opaque veils covered their faces
from chin to eyes. To the sound of the music they began to dance,
finger-cymbals clinking and tiny golden bells tinkling at their ankles.

Even for a Vendhyan, Conan thought, this was too elaborate a way to
kill a man. Filling the goblet with wine, he reclined to watch and
enjoy.

At first the dancers' steps were slow but by tiny increments their
speed increased. In flowing movements they spun and leaped, and with
each spin, with each leap, a bit of colorful silk drifted away from
them. Graceful jumps in unison they made, with legs outstretched, or
they writhed with feet planted and arms twined above their heads. The
length and breadth of the floor they covered, now moving away from him,
now gliding almost to the cushions. Then all the silks were gone save
their veils, and the three lush-bodied women danced in only their
satiny skins, gleaming with a faint sheen of perspiration.

At the sharp clap of Conan's hands, the dancers froze, rounded breasts
heaving from their exertions. The musicians, unseeing and unaware of
what transpired, played on.

"You two go," the Cimmerian commanded, indicating his choices. "You
stay and dance." Dark eyes exchanged uncertain glances above veils.
"Your mistress commanded an entertainment for me," he went on. "Must I
drag the three of you through the palace in search of her to tell her
you will not obey?" The looks that passed between the women were
frightened now. The two he had pointed out ran from the chamber. The
third woman stared after them as though on the point of running also.
"Dance for me," Conan said.

Hesitantly, reluctantly, she found her steps again. Before, the dancers
had seemed, more aware of the music than of Conan, but now this woman's
head turned constantly, independent of her dance, to keep her dark eyes
on his face. She flowed across the floor, whirling and leaping as
gracefully as before, but there was a nervousness, too, as though she
felt his gaze as a palpable caress on her nudity.

As she came close to him, Conan grabbed a slim, belled ankle. With a
squeal she toppled to the cushions and lay staring at him over her veil
with wide eyes. For long moments there was no sound but the music and
her agitated breathing.

"Please, master," she whispered finally. "My mistress asks that her
serving women-"

"Am I your master then?" Conan asked. Idly he ran a finger from slender
calf to rounded thigh, and she shivered. "What if I send for Punjar,
saying you have not pleased me? What if I demand he switch you here and
now?"

"Then I ... I would be switched, master," she whispered and swallowed
hard.

Conan shook his head. "Truly, Vendhyans are mad. Would you really go so
far to hide the truth from me?" Before she could flinch away, he
snatched the veil from her face.

For an instant Vyndra stared up at him, scarlet suffusing her cheeks.

Then her eyes snapped shut, and frantically she tried to cover herself
with her arms.

"It did not work with Kang Hou," Conan laughed, "and it does not work
with me." Her blush deepened and her eyes squeezed tighter. "This time
your playing at games has gone awry," he said, leaning over her. "One
chance, and one chance only, will I give you to run and then I will
show you what men and women do who do not play games."

The crimson did not leave her cheeks, but her eyes opened just enough
for her to look at him through long lashes. "You fool," she murmured.
"I could have run from you any day since my hands were unbound."

Throwing her arms about his neck, she pulled him down to her.


Chapter XIX

As shadows lengthened with the sinking sun, Conan left Vyndra sleeping
on the cushions and went in search of more wine. "Immediately, master,"
a servant said in response to his request, adding at his next question,
"No, master, the two men have not yet returned from the city. I know
nothing of the Khitan woman, master."

Finding a chamber with tall, arched windows looking to the west, Conan
sat with his foot on the windowsill and his back against its frame. The
sun, violent red in a purpling sky, hung its own diameter above the
towering trees in the distance. It was a grim sight, fit for his mood.
The day had been useless. Waiting in the palace, even making love to
Vyndra, however enjoyable, now seemed time wasted. At least in
following the caravan this far there had been the illusion of doing
something about the poison in his veins, of hunting down the men whose
deaths he must see to before his own. One of those men, at least, was
in the city, not a league distant, and here he sat, waiting.

"Patil?"

At the soft female voice, he looked around. An unveiled Vendhyan woman
stood in the doorway of the chamber, her plain robes of cotton neither
those of a servant nor of a noble.

"You do not recognize me," she said with a smile, and abruptly he did.

"Kuie Hsi," he gasped. "I did not believe you could so completely-"
Impatiently he put all that aside. "What did you learn?"

"Much, and little. The caravan remained in the city only hours, for the
merchants' markets are in Ayodhya and the nobles are impatient to reach
the court. Karim Singh, however," she added as he leaped to his feet,
"is yet in Gwandiakan, though I could not learn where."

"He will not escape me," Conan growled. "Nor this Naipal, wizard though
he be. But why does the wazam remain here rather than going on to the
court?"

"Perhaps because, according to rumor, Naipal has been in Gwandiakan for
two days. As his face is known to few, however, this cannot be
confirmed."

Conan's fist smacked into his palm. "Crom, but this cannot be other
than fate. Both of them within my grasp. I will finish it this night."
The Khitan woman caught his arm as he started from the chamber. "If you
mean to enter Gwandiakan, take care, for the city is uneasy. Soldiers
have been arresting the children of the streets, all of the homeless
urchins and beggar children, supposedly on the orders of the wazam.
Many are angered, and the poorer sections of the city need but a spark
to burst into flame. The streets of Gwandiakan could run with blood
over this."

"I have seen blood before," he said grimly, and then he was striding
down the tapestried corridors. "Punjar! My horse!"

But half-awake, Vyndra stretched on the cushions, noting lazily that
the lamps had been lit and night was come. Abruptly she frowned.
Someone had laid a silken coverlet over her. With a gasp she clutched
the covering to her at the sight of Chin Kou. The Khitan woman's arms
were filled with folds of many-colored silk.

"I brought garments," Chin Kou said.

Vyndra pulled the coverlet up about her neck. "And what made you think
I would need clothing?" she demanded haughtily.

"I am sorry," Chin Kou said, turning to leave. "No doubt when you wish
to cover yourself, you will summon servants. I will leave you the
coverlet since you seem to desire that."

"Wait!" Blushing, Vyndra fingered the coverlet. "I did not know. As you
have brought the garments, you might as well leave them."

Chin Kou arched an eyebrow. "There is no need to take such a tone with
me. I know very well what you were doing with the cheng-li who calls
himself Patil." Vyndra groaned, the scarlet in her cheeks deepening.
After a moment the merchant's daughter took pity. "I was doing the same
thing with the cheng-li who calls himself Hasan. Now I know your secret
and you know mine. You fear only shame before your servants. My uncle's
switch produces a much greater smarting than mere shame."

Vyndra stared at the other woman as though seeing her for the first
time. It was not that she had been unaware of Chin Kou, but the Khitan
was a merchant's niece and surely merchants' nieces did not think and
feel in the same way as a woman born of the Kshatriya blood. Or did
they? "Do you love him?" she asked. "Hasan, I mean?"

"Yes," Chin Kou said emphatically, "though I do not know if he returns
my feelings. Do you love the man called Patil?"

Vyndra shook her head. "As well love a tiger. But," she added with a
mischievousness she could not control, "to be made love to by a tiger
is a very fine thing."

"Hasan," Chin Kou said gravely, "is also very vigorous."

Suddenly the two women were giggling, and the giggles became
deep-throated laughter.

"Thank you for the clothing," Vyndra said when she could talk again.
Tossing aside the coverlet, she rose. Chin Kou aided her in dressing,
though she did not ask it, and once she was garbed, she said, "Come. We
will have wine and talk of men and tigers and other strange beasts."

As the Khitan woman opened her mouth to reply, a shrill scream echoed
through the palace, followed by the shouts of men and the clang of
steel on steel.

Chin Kou clutched at Vyndra's arm. "We must hide."

"Hide!" Vyndra exclaimed. "This is my palace and I will not cower in it
like a rabbit."

"Foolish pride speaks," the smaller woman said. "Think what kind of
bandits would attack a palace! Do you think your noble blood will
protect you?"

"Yes. And you also. Even brigands will know that a ransom will be paid,
for you and your sister as well, once they know who I am."

"Know who you are?" came a voice from the doorway, and Vyndra jumped in
spite of herself.

"Kandar," she breathed. Pride said to stand her ground defiantly, but
she could not stop herself from backing away as the cruel-eyed prince
swaggered into the chamber, a bloody sword in his fist. In the corridor
behind him were turban-helmed soldiers, also with crimson-stained
weapons.

He stooped to take something from the floor-the veil she had worn while
dancing-and fingered it thoughtfully as he advanced. "Perhaps you think
you are a noble-woman," he said, "perhaps even the famous Lady Vyndra,
known for the brilliance of her wit and the dazzling gatherings at her
palaces? Alas, the tale has been well told already of how the Lady
Vyndra fell prey beyond the Himelias to a savage barbarian who carried
her off, to death perhaps, or slavery."

"What can you possibly hope to gain by this farce?" Vyndra demanded,
but the words faded as six veiled women, swathed in concealing layers
of silk, entered the room. And with them was Prytanis.

Smirking, the Nemedian leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.
"The gods are good, wench," he said, "for who should I find in
Gwandiakan but Prince Kandar, who was interested to learn of the
presence of a certain woman nearby. A purse of gold he offered for the
nameless jade, and I could only accept his generosity."

Annoyance flashed across Kandar's face, but he seemed otherwise unaware
of the other man. "Prepare her," he commanded. "Prepare both of them. I
will not refuse an extra trifle when it is put before me."

"No!" Vyndra screamed.

She whirled to run, but before she had crossed half the chamber, three
of the veiled women were on her, pushing her to the floor. With a
corner of her mind she was aware of the other three holding Chin Kou,
but panting desperation flooded every part of her. Frantically,
futilely, she fought, but the women rolled her this way and that,
stripping away her so-recently donned robes with humiliating ease. When
she was naked, they would not allow her to regain her feet but dragged
her writhing across the floor with kicking legs trailing behind her. At
Kandar's feet they forced her to her knees and his gaze chilled her to
the bone, turning her muscles to water, stilling her struggles. Chin
Kou was knelt beside her, as naked as she and sobbing with terror, but
Vyndra could not take her eyes from Kandar's.

"You cannot hope to get away with this," she whispered. "I am not some
nameless-"

"You are nameless," he snapped. "I told you, the Lady Vyndra is
gone"-slowly he fastened the veil across her face by its tiny silver
chain-"and in her place is a new addition to my purdhana. I think I
will name you Maryna."

"Your sister," Vyndra panted. She had had no trouble with the veil
while dancing; now it seemed to restrict her breathing. "I will free
Alyna. I will-" His slap jerked her head sideways.

"I have no sister," he growled.

"What of my gold?" Prytanis demanded suddenly. "The wench is yours, and
I want my payment."

"Of course." Kandar took a purse from his belt, tossing it to the
slitnosed man. "It is satisfactory,"

Prytanis eagerly untied the purse strings and spilled some of the
golden coins into his palm. "It is satisfactory," he said. "If only
Conan could see-" His words ended in a grunt as Kandar's sword thrust
into his middle. Gold rang on the floor tiles as he grabbed the blade
with both hands.

Kandar met the Nemedian's unbelieving gaze levelly. "You gazed on the
unveiled faces of two women of my purdhana," he explained. The razor
steel slid easily from the dying man's grasp, and Prytanis fell atop
his gold.

Face smarting, Vyndra gathered the last shreds of her courage. "To kill
your own hirelings and take back the gold is like you, Kandar. You were
always a fool and a worm." His dark gaze made her realize it had been
the last of her courage. She clenched her teeth with the effort of
facing him.

"He saw your face unveiled," the prince said, "and that of the Khitan
woman, so he had to die, for my honor. But he earned the gold and I am
no thief. You will be beaten once for that and again for each of the
other insults."

"I am of the Kshatriya blood." Vyndra spoke the words for her own
benefit, as though to deny what had happened, and no one else seemed to
notice them.

"This was the last of your strange companions," Kandar continued. "The
others are already dead. All of them."

A whimper rose in Vyndra's throat. The vanishing of a small hope she
had not known was there until it was gone, the hope that the huge
barbarian would rescue her, left her now truly with nothing. "You will
never break me," she whispered and knew the emptiness of the words even
as they left her lips.

"Break you?" Kandar said mockingly. "Of course not. But there must be
some small training in obedience. Some small humbling of your pride."
Vyndra wanted to shake her head in denial, but his eyes held hers like
a serpent mesmerizing a bird. "On the morrow you will be placed on a
horse, garbed as now, and paraded through the streets of Gwandiakan so
that all may see the beauty of my new possession. Bring them!" he
snapped at the women.

With all of her heart Vyndra wanted to muster a shout of defiance, but
she knew, as she was dragged to the horses, that it was a wail of
despair that echoed in the halls of her palace.


Chapter XX

At a crude plank table by himself in the corner of a dirt-floored
tavern, Conan was reminded of Sultanapur as he tugged the hood of his
dark cloak, borrowed from a groom at Vyndra's palace, deeper over his
face. Wondering when he would next be in a city without the need to
hide his features, he emptied half the cheap wine in his wooden tank in
one long swallow.

The others in the tavern were Vendhyans all, though far from the nobles
or wealthy of Gwandiakan. Carters who smelled of their oxen rubbed
elbows with masons' apprentices in tunics stained with gray splashes of
dried mortar. Nondescript turbaned men hunkered over their wine or
talked in hushed tones with black eyes darting to see who might
overhear. The smell of sour wine warred with incense, and the muted
babble of voices did not quite mask the tinkle of bells at the wrists
and ankles of sloe-eyed doxies parading through the tavern. Unlike
their sisters in the West, their robes covered them from ankle to neck,
but those robes were of the sheerest gossamer, concealing nothing. The
jades found few customers, though, and the usual frivolity of taverns
was absent. The air was filled with a tension darker than the night
outside the walls. The Cimmerian was not the only man to keep his face
hidden.

Conan signaled for more wine. A serving wench, her garb but a trifle
more opaque than that of the trulls, brought a rough clay pitcher, took
his coin and hurried away without a word, obviously eager to return to
her cubbyhole and hide.

That tightly wound nervousness had been evident in the entire city from
his arrival, and it had grown tighter as the night went on. Soldiers
were still arresting homeless waifs and beggar children, such few as
had not gone to ground like pursued foxes, carrying them off to the
fortress prison that stood in the center of Gwandiakan. But even the
soldiers could sense the mood of the sullen throngs. Patrols now often
numbered a hundred men, and they moved as though expecting attack at
any moment.

The streets had been full of talk earlier, full of rumor, and the
Cimmerian had no trouble in hearing of the men he sought. Quickly he
learned the location of Prince Kandar's palace, one of the few east of
the city, and of that where Karim Singh was said to be staying. Before
he had gone a hundred paces, however, he heard of another palace said
to house the wazam, and fifty paces beyond that a third, both widely
separated from each other and from the first. Each corner brought a new
rumor. Half the palaces of Gwandiakan were said to contain Karim Singh.
Tongues could be found to name every palace as housing Naipal, and many
spoke of an invisible palace constructed in a night by the mage, while
still others claimed the wizard watched the city from above, from the
clouds. In the end it was frustration that had sent Conan into the
tavern.

A wave of dizziness that had nothing to do with the wine swept over
him, not for the first time that night, clouding his vision. Grimly he
fought it off, and when his eyes cleared, Hordo was sliding onto a
bench across the table from him.

"I have been looking for you for hours," the one-eyed man said. "Kandar
attacked Vyndra's palace with a hundred lancers and took Vyndra and the
Khitan's niece, Chin Kou. Prytanis was with him."

With a snarl Conan smashed his wooden tankard to the dirt floor.
Momentary silence rolled through the room, and every eye swiveled to
him. Then, hastily, talk began again. It was not a night to become
involved in a stranger's anger.

"The men?" Conan asked.

"Nicks and cuts. No more. We managed to get to the horses and Kuie Hsi
found us a place to hide, an abandoned temple on something called the
Street of Dreams, though miserable dreams they must be. A day or two of
rest and healing and we'll see what can be done about the wenches."

Conan shook his head, as much to clear it as in negation. "I do not
have a day or two. Best you return to this temple. They will need you
if they are to make it back to Turan."

"What are you about?" Hordo demanded, but the Cimmerian only clapped
his friend on the shoulder and hurried from the tavern. As Conan
trotted down the darkened street, he heard the one-eyed man calling
behind him, but he did not look back.

The Bhalkhana stallion was stabled near the city gate by which he had
entered Gwandiakan, and a coin retrieved the big black from a wizened
liveryman. The city gates themselves were massive, ten times the height
of a man, and made of black iron plates worked in fanciful designs.
They would not be easily moved, and from the dirt that had accumulated
along their bases, it had been years since they were closed. The city's
ill ease hung on the turban-helmed gate guards as well, and they only
watched him nervously, fingering their spears, as he galloped through.

The one bit of definite information he had learned in his night of
listening, the one story that did not change-and the one he had thought
least useful even at that-was the location of Kandar's palace. Rage
filled him, but it was an icy rage. To die with sword in hand would be
much preferable to succumbing to the poison in his veins, but the women
must be freed first. Only when they were safe could he allow himself to
think of his own concerns.

Short of the palace he rode into a copse of trees and tied the
stallion's reins to a branch. Stealth and cunning, bred in his days as
a thief, would better serve him now than steel.

Prince Kandar's palace, larger even than Vyndra's, shone in the night
with the light of a thousand lamps, a gleaming alabaster intricacy of
terraces, domes and spires. Reflection pools stretched on all sides and
between them gardens of flowering shrubs reached the very walls of the
palace, their myriad blossoms filling the darkness with a hundred
perfumes.

Perfumes and blossoms did not interest Conan, but the shrubs served
well to cover his silent approach. He was but one shadow among many.
Fingers trained by climbing the cliffs of his native Cimmerian
mountains found crevices in the seemingly smooth joining of great
marble blocks, and he scaled the palace wall as another man might climb
a ladder.

Lying flat atop the broad wall, Conan surveyed what he could of the
palace-small courtyards with splashing fountains, intricately friezed
towers thrusting toward the sky, colonnaded walks lit by lamps of
cunningly wrought gold. Breath caught in his throat, and his hand went
unbidden to his sword. Past the fluted columns of one of those
colonnades walked a man in robes of gold and crimson with another in
what seemed black silk. Karim Singh. And, if the gods were with him,
Naipal. With a regretful sigh he released the sword-hilt and watched
the two men walk on beyond his sight. The women, he told himself. The
women first. Scrambling to his feet, he ran along the wall.

Height was the key, as experience in the cities of Nemedia and Zamora
had taught him. A man glimpsed in the upper reaches of a structure,
even one who obviously did not belong there, was often ignored. After
all, without a right to be there, how could he have traveled so far?
Too, entering on the upper levels meant that every step took a man
closer to the ground and his route to escape. Escape was especially
important this night, for the two women if not for him.

Cornices, friezes and a hundred elaborate workings of alabaster stone
made a swift path for the big Cimmerian. Slipping through a narrow
window just below the roof, he found himself in a pitch-dark stuffy
room. By touch he quickly ascertained that it was a storeroom for
carpets and bedding. The narrow door opened onto a corridor dimly lit
by brass lamps. No gold hangings or fine tapestries here, for these
upper floors were servants' quarters. Snores drifted from some of the
rooms. As silent and grim as a hunting cat, Conan padded into the hall.
Stairs led him down.

Sounds floated from other parts of the palace-an indistinguishable
murmur of voices, the thrum of a cithern. Once the single deep toll of
a gong echoed mournfully. The Cimmerian let them pass all but
unnoticed, his eyes and ears straining instead for the flicker of
shadow or hint of a soft footfall that might betray any who could give
an alarm.

It was a bedchamber he sought, he was sure of that. From what he knew
of Kandar, such would have been his first stop with the women, and it
would no doubt suit his fancy to have them awaiting his return were he
not still with them. Conan hoped that he was. Karim Singh and Naipal
would certainly escape him this night but it would be good to deal with
Kandar at least.

The first three bedchambers he found were empty, though golden lamps
cast soft light in wait for their eventual occupants. As he stepped
into the fourth, only a sense below the levels of understanding threw
him into a forward roll an instant before razor steel slashed through
the place where his head had been.

Conan came to his feet with broadsword in hand, and a vigorous cut made
his attacker leap back. The Cimmerian stared at his opponent, for he
had not seen the man's like before, not even in this strange land. A
nasaled helm with a thick spike topped his dark expressionless face,
and his armor was of leather studded with brass. A long straight sword
was in his gauntleted right hand, a shorter curved blade in his left,
and he moved as though he knew well the use of each.

"I am here for the women," Conan said in a taunting voice. If he could
make the man exchange words with him, the other might not think to give
an alarm even while they strove to slay each other. "Tell me where they
are, and I'll not kill you." The man's silent rush forced him to throw
up his blade in defense.

And it was defense, the Cimmerian realized in shock. His broadsword
flashed and darted as swiftly as ever it had, but it was all in a
desperate effort to keep the other's steel from striking him. For the
first time in his life he faced a man faster than himself. Slashes with
the speed of a striking viper forced him back. Snarling, he gambled,
continuing the motion of a block with a smash of his fisted hilt to his
opponent's face.

The strangely armored man was thrown back, an inlaid table crushed to
splinters by his fall, but before Conan could take more than a single
step to follow up his attack, the other sprang to his feet. Conan met
him in the center of the room, and sparks were struck as steel wove a
deadly lace between them. The Cimmerian poured all of his rage-at
Kandar, at Naipal, at Karim Singh-into his attack, refusing this time
to yield a step. Abruptly a slicing blow of his broadsword sheared
through flesh and bone, but even as it did, he was forced to jump back
to avoid a decapitating stroke.

Landing on guard and ready to continue, Conan felt the hair on the back
of his neck stir. His last blow had stopped his opponent-and indeed it
should have, as the short curved sword now lay on the carpet along with
the hand that gripped it-but it was obviously only a temporary halt.
That expressionless face had not changed in the least, and the dark
flat eyes did not so much as glance at the severed wrist, a wound that
gave not a single drop of blood. Sorcery, the Cimmerian thought.
Suddenly the silence in which the other had fought took on eerie
quality. And then the murderous assault began anew.

If the sorcerous warrior was accustomed to fighting with two swords, he
seemed little less able with only one. Conan met each lightning stroke
but his own were met as well. He could match the other now, the
Cimmerian knew, one blade against one blade, but could mortal flesh
outlast the endurance of sorcery?

Abruptly the severed stump struck the side of Conan's head with a force
greater than he would have believed possible, flinging him back as
though he were a child. It was his turn to find himself on his back
amidst the ruins of a table, but before he could rise, his attacker was
on him. Desperately Conan blocked a downward blow that would have split
his skull. Among the wreckage of the table his hand closed on a hilt,
and he thrust. The other man twisted like a serpent, and the blade cut
through his leather armor, slicing across his ribs. As though his bones
had melted, the dark warrior collapsed atop Conan.

Quickly the Cimmerian heaved the body from him and sprang to his feet
with sword ready, fearing some trick. The leather-armored figure did
not move; the flat black eyes were glazed.

In wonder Conan looked at the weapon he had taken up and almost dropped
it as he cursed. It seemed a short-sword but the hilt was long enough
for two hands, and blade and hilt alike were wrought of some strange
silvery metal that glowed with unearthly light.

A smell made his nose twitch and he cursed again. It was the stink of
putrefaction. Within the leather armor the corpse of his opponent was
already half-decayed, white bone showing through rotted flesh. An
ensorcelled warrior slain by an obviously ensorcelled blade. Part of
his mind urged Conan to leave the foul thing but another part whispered
that such might be useful against a sorcerer like Naipal. Mages were
not always so easily slain as other men.

Sheathing his broadsword, he hastily tore silk from the coverlets on
the bed and wrapped the silvery weapon, thrusting it behind his
swordbelt. As he did so, he heard pounding boots approaching, many of
them. The splintered tables, with scattered chests and broken crystal
and shattered mirrors, were mute evidence that the battle had not been
silent after all. Muttering imprecations, he ran for the windows,
climbing through just as a score of Vendhyan soldiers poured into the
room.

Once more alabaster ornamentations were his roadway along the wall, but
behind him he heard cries of alarm. Upward he climbed, grasping a
balustrade to pull himself onto a balcony ... and stopping with one
foot over at the sight of another dozen men in turbaned helms. A thrown
spear streaked by his head and he threw himself desperately back as
other arms were cocked.

Even with knees bent, the force of landing shook him to the bone. More
voices took up the cry of alarm, and the thud of running boots came
from both left and right. A spear lanced from above to quiver in the
ground not a pace from him. He leaped away from the wall, and another
spear shivered where he had stood. Bent double, he ran into the garden
between the reflecting pools, becoming one with the shadows.

"Guards!" the cries rose. "Guards!" "Beat the gardens!"

"Find him!"

From the edge of the trees Conan watched, teeth bared in a snarl.
Soldiers milled about the palace like ants about a kicked anthill.
There would be no entering that palace again tonight.

Pain ripped through him, muscles spasming, doubling him over. Gasping
for breath, he forced himself erect. His hand closed on the
silkshrouded hilt of the strange weapon. "I am not dead yet," he
whispered, "and it will not be over until I am." With no more sound
than the wind in the leaves, he faded into the darkness.

Naipal stared at the ruin of his bedchamber in shocked disbelief,
willing himself not to breathe the smell of decay that hung in the air.
The shouts of searching soldiers did not register on his ear. Only the
contents of that chamber were real at that moment, and they in a way
that turned his stomach with fear and sent blinding pains through his
head.

The leather armor held his eye with sickly fascination. A skull grinned
up at him from the ancient helm. Bones and dust were all that was left
of his warrior. His warrior who could not die. The first of an army
that could not die. In the name of all the gods, how had it happened?

With an effort he pulled his gaze from the leather-clad skeleton, but
inexorably it fell on the long golden coffer, now lying on its side
amid splinters of ebony that had been a table, lying there open and
empty. Empty! Shards of elaborately carved ivory were all that was left
of the mirror of warning, and naught but a hundred jagged pieces
remained of the mirror itself.

Grunting, he bent to pick up half a dozen of the mirror fragments.
Each, whatever its size, was filled by an image, an image that would be
on all the other pieces as well, an image that would never change now.
Wonderingly, he studied that grim face in the fragments, a square-cut
black mane held back by a leather cord, strange eyes the color and
hardness of sapphire, a feral snarl baring white teeth.

He knew who it had to be. The man who called himself Patil. Karim
Singh's simple barbarian. But the mirror, even now at the last, would
show only what threatened his plans. Could a simple barbarian do that?
Could a simple barbarian seek him out so quickly? Know to break the
mirror and steal the demon-wrought dagger? Slay what could not be
slain? The pieces fell from Naipal's fingers as he whispered the word
he did not want to believe. "Pan-kur-."

"What was that?" Karim Singh asked as he entered the room. The wazam
carefully kept his eyes from the thing in leather armor on the floor.
"You look exhausted, Naipal. Kandar's servants will clean this mess,
and his soldiers will deal with the intruder. You must rest. I will not
have you collapse before you can serve me as king."

"We must go immediately," Naipal said. He rubbed his temples with the
tips of his fingers. The strain of the past days wore at him, and he
would not now take the effort to feign servility. "Tell Kandar to
gather his soldiers."

"I have been thinking, Naipal. What will it matter if we wait a few
days? Surely it will rain soon, and the stinging flies are said to be
better after a rain."

"Fool!" the wizard howled, and Karim Singh's jaw dropped. "You will
have me serve you as king? Wait and you will not be king, you will be
meat for dogs!" Naipal's eyes went to the scattered fragments of mirror
and slid away. "And tell Kandar we must have more soldiers. Tell him to
strip the fortress if need be. A simple spell will divert your fearsome
flies."

"The governor is uneasy," Karim Singh said shakily. "He obeys but I can
tell that he does not believe my reasons for ordering the street
children arrested. Given the mood of the city, he might refuse such a
command and even if he obeys, he will doubtless send riders to Ayodhya,
to Bhandarkar."

"Do not fear Bhandarkar. If you must fear someone . . ." Naipal's voice
was soft, but his eyes burned so that Karim Singh took a step back and
seemed to have trouble breathing. "Tell the governor that if he defies
me, I will wither his flesh and put him in the streets as a tongueless
beggar to watch his wives and daughters dragged away to brothels. Tell
him!" And the wazam of Vendhya fled like a servant. Naipal forced his
gaze back to the fragments of mirror, back to the hundred-times
repeated image.

"You will not conquer, pan-kur-," he whispered. "I will yet be
victorious over you."


Chapter XXI

Hordo had been right about the Street of Dreams, Conan thought when he
first saw it in the gray light of dawn. The stallion picked its way
along the dirt roadway between muddy pools of offal and piles of rubble
overgrown with weeds. The buildings were skulls, with empty windows for
eye sockets. Roofs sagged where they had not fallen in. Walls leaned
and some had collapsed, spewing clay bricks across the dirt of the
Street, revealing barren, rat-infested interiors. Occasional ragged,
furtive shapes appeared in a doorway or darted across the street behind
him. The people of the Street of Dreams were like scurrying rodents,
fearful to poke their noses into the light. The stench of decay and
mold filled the air. Ill dreams indeed, Conan thought. Ill dreams
indeed.

The abandoned temple was not hard to find, a domed structure with
pigeons fluttering through gaping holes in the dome. Once eight fluted
marble columns had stood across its front, but now three had fallen.
Two lay in fragments across the street, weeds growing thickly along
their edges. Of the third only a stump remained. Part of the front wall
had fallen too, revealing that what must have once seemed to be marble
blocks were in truth only a stone facing over clay bricks. The opening
widened and heightened the temple door enough for a man to enter on
horseback. There was no sign of the smugglers but the gloomy interior
could have hidden them easily. Or ten times their number of the area's
denizens. Conan drew his sword. He had to duck his head as he rode
through the gap in the wall.

Within was a large dim room, its cracked floor tiles covered with dust
and broken bricks. The thick pillars here were of wood, all splintered
with rot. At the far end of the chamber there was a marble altar, its
edges chipped and cracked, but of whatever god it had been raised to,
there was no evidence.

Before the stallion had taken three paces into the room, Hordo appeared
from behind a pillar. "It is about time you got here, Cimmerian. I was
all but ready to give you up for dead this time."

Enam and Shamil stepped out, too, with arrows nocked but not drawn.
Both had bandages showing. "We did not know it was you," the young
Turanian said. "There are pigeons roasting on a spit in the back, if
you are hungry."

"We try to hide the smell of them," Enam said, spitting. "The people
here are like vermin. They look ready to swarm over anyone with food
like a pack of rats."

Conan nodded as he stepped down from the saddle. Once on the ground, he
had to hold onto the stirrup leather for a moment; the pains and
dizziness had not returned, but weakness had come in their place. "I
have seen nothing like them," he said. "In Turan or Zamora it is a far
cry from palace to beggar, but here it seems two different lands."

"Vendhya is a country of great contrasts," Kang Hou said, approaching
from the rear of the ruined structure.

"It is like a melon rotting from within," Conan replied. "A fruit
overripe for plucking." The weakness was lessening. It came in cycles.
"Someday perhaps I will return with an army and pluck it."

"Many have said as much," the Khitan replied, "yet the Kshatriyas still
rule here. Forgive my unseemly haste, but Hordo has told us you sought
Prince Kandar's palace last night. You could not find my niece? Or Lady
Vyndra?"

"I could not reach them," Conan said grimly. "But I will before I am
done."

Kang Hou's face did not change expression, and all he said was, "Hasan
says the pigeons must be taken from the fire. He suggests they be eaten
before they grow cold."

"The man must have a heart like stone," Hordo muttered as the other two
smugglers followed the Khitan out.

"He is a tough man for a merchant," Conan agreed. He tugged the
silk-wrapped weapon from his belt and handed it to his friend. "What do
you make of this?"

Hordo gasped as the cloth fell away, revealing the faintly glowing
silvery metal. "Sorcery! As soon as I heard there was a wizard in this,
I should have turned my horse around." His eye squinted as he peered at
the weapon. "This design makes no sense, Cimmerian. A two-handed hilt
on a short-sword?"

"It slew a man, or a thing, that my sword did not slow," Conan said.
The one-eyed man winced and hastily rebundled the silk about the
weapon. "I do not want to know about it. Here. Take it." He chewed at
nothing as the Cimmerian returned the weapon to its place tucked behind
his sword-belt, then said, "There has been no sign of Ghurran. How did
you pass the night without his potion?"

"Without missing the foul thing," Conan grunted. "Come. I could eat a
dozen of those pigeons. Let us get to them before they are gone." There
were two large windowless rooms at the back of the temple, one without
a roof. In that room was the fire; the other was used as a stable. Enam
and Shamil squatted by the fire, wolfing down pigeon. The Khitan ate
more delicately, while Hasan sat against a wall, clasping his knees and
scowling at the world.

"Where is Kuie Hsi?" Conan wanted to know.

"She left before first light," Hordo told him around mouthfuls of roast
pigeon, "to see what she could discover."

"I have returned," the Khitan woman said from the door, "again learning
much and little. I was slow in returning because the mood of the city
is ugly. Angry crowds roam the streets and ruffians take advantage. A
woman alone, I was twice almost assaulted."

"You have a light step," Conan complimented her. He would wager that
the men who had "almost" assaulted her rued the incident if they still
lived. "What is this much and little you have learned?"

Still in her Vendhyan garb, Kuie Hsi looked hesitantly at Kang Hou, who
merely wiped his lips with a cloth and waited. "At dawn," she began
slowly, "Karim Singh entered the city. The wizard, Naipal, was with
him, and Prince Kandar. They took soldiers from the fortress,
increasing the number of their escort to perhaps one thousand lances,
and left the city, heading west. I heard a soldier say they rode to the
Forests of Ghelai. The chests in which you are so interested went with
them on mules."

For an instant Conan teetered on the horns of decision. Karim Singh and
Naipal might escape him. There was no way to tell how much time he had
left before the poison overtook him completely. Yet he knew there was
only one way to decide. "If they took so many soldiers," he said, "few
can remain at Kandar's palace to guard Vyndra and Chin Kou."

Kuie Hsi let her eyes drop to the floor, and her voice became a
whisper. "There were two women with them, veiled but unclothed, and
bound to their saddles. One was Chin Kou, the other the Vendhyan woman.
Forgive me, uncle. I could see her but could do nothing."

"There is nothing to forgive," Kang Hou said, "for you have in no way
failed. Any failure is mine alone."

"Perhaps it is," Conan said quietly, "but I cannot feel but that
neither woman would be where she is except for me. And that means it is
on me to see them safe. I will not ask any of you to accompany me.
Beyond the matter of a thousand soldiers, you know there is a wizard
involved, and he will be where I am going."

"Be not a fool," Hordo growled, and Enam added, "The Brotherhood of the
Coast does not desert its own. Prytanis never understood that but I
do."

"He has Chin Kou," Hasan burst out. "Do you expect me to sit here while
he does Mitra alone knows what to her?" He seemed ready to fight Conan
if need be.

"As for me," Kang Hou said with an amused smile for Hasan, "she is only
my niece, of course." The young Turanian's face colored. "This is a
matter of family honor."

Shamil gave a shaky laugh. "Well, I'll not be the only one to stay
here. I wanted adventure, and none can say this is not it."

"Then let us ride," Conan said, "before they escape us."

"Patience," Kang Hou counseled. "The Forests of Ghelai are ten leagues
distant, and a thousand men ride more slowly than six may. Let us not
fail for a lack of preparation. There are stinging flies in the
forests, but I know of an ointment that may abate their attack."

"Flies?" Hordo muttered. "Stinging flies; wizards are not enough,
Cimmerian? When we are out of this, you will owe me for the flies."

"And returning to Gwandiakan may not be wise," Kuie Hsi offered. "Soon
there may be riots. A league this side of the forests there is said to
be a well, thought to be a stopping place for caravans in ancient times
but long abandoned. There I will await you with food and clothing for
Chin Kou and Vyndra. And word if the city is safe. I will draw maps."
Conan knew they were right. How many times in his days as a thief had
he sneered at others for their lack of preparation and the lack of
success that went with it? But now he could only grind his teeth with
the frustration of waiting an instant. Time and the knowledge of the
poison in his veins pressed heavily on him. But he would see Vyndra and
Chin Kou free-and Karim Singh and Naipal dead-before he died. By Crom,
he vowed it.


Chapter XXII

Riding beneath the tall trees of the Forest of Ghelai, Conan was unsure
whether Kang Hou's ointment was not worse than the flies it was meant
to discourage. There was no smell to it, but the feel on the skin was
much like that after wading in a cesspool. The horses had liked having
it smeared on them no more than had the men. He slapped a tiny fly that
would not be discouraged-the bite was like a red-hot needle stabbing
his arm-and grimaced at the glittering-winged swarms that surrounded
the meager column. Then again, perhaps the ointment was not so bad.

The forest canopy was far above their heads, many of the trees towering
more than a hundred and fifty feet. The high branches were thickly
woven, letting little light through, and that seeming tinged with
green. Streams of long-tailed monkeys flowed from limb to limb, a
hundred rivers of brown fur rolling in a hundred different directions.
Flocks of multicolored birds, some with strange bills or elaborate tail
feathers, screamed from high branches while others in a thousand varied
hues made brilliant streaks against the green as they darted back and
forth.

"There are no such flies on the plains of Zamora," Hordo grumbled,
slapping. "I could be there instead of here had I a brain in my head.
There are no such flies on the steppes of Turan. I could be there-"

"If you do not shut your teeth," Conan muttered, "the only place you
will be is dead, and likely left to rot where you fall. Or do you think
Kandar's soldiers are deaf?"

"They could not hear themselves pass wind for those Mitra-accursed
birds," the one-eyed man replied, but he subsided into silence.

In truth Conan did not know how close or how far the Vendhyans might
be. A thousand men left a plain trail, but the ground was soft and
springy with a thousand years of continuous decay, and the chopping
that passed for hoofprints could have been five hours old or the
hundredth part of that. The Cimmerian did know the day was almost gone
though, for all he could not see the sun. The amount of time they had
been riding made that plain, and the dim greenish light was fading. He
did not believe the soldiers would continue on in the dark.

Abruptly he reined in, forcing the others behind to do so as well, and
peered in consternation at what lay ahead. Huge blocks of stone,
overgrown with vines as thick as a man's arm, formed a wide wall fifty
feet high that stretched north and south as far as the eye could make
out in the dim verdant light. Directly before him was a towered
gateway, though the gates that once had blocked it had been gone for
centuries by the evidence of a great tree rising in its center. Beyond
he could make out other shapes among the forest growth, massive ruins
among the trees. And the trail they followed passed through that
gateway.

"Would they pass the night in there?" Hordo asked. "Even the gods do
not know what might be in a place like that."

"I think," Kang Hou said slowly, "that this might be where they were
going." Conan looked at him curiously, but the slight merchant said no
more.

"Then we follow," the Cimmerian said, swinging down from his saddle.
"But we leave the horses here." He went on as mouths opened in protest.
"A man hides better afoot, and we must be like ferrets scurrying
through a thicket. There are a thousand Vendhyan lancers in this place,
remember." That brought them down.

Leaving someone with the animals, Conan decided, was worse than
useless. It would reduce their number by one and the man left behind
could do nothing if a Vendhyan patrol came on him. All would enter the
city together. Conan, sword in hand, was first through the ancient
gateway, with Hordo close behind. Enam and Shamil brought up the rear
with arrows nocked to their bowstrings. Alone of the small column, Kang
Hou seemed unarmed, but the Cimmerian was ready to wager the merchant's
throwing knives resided in his sleeves.

Conan had seen ruined cities before, some abandoned for centuries, or
even millennia. Some would stand on mountain peaks until the earth
shook and buried them. Others endured the sand-laden desert winds,
slowly wearing away stone so that in another thousand years or two,
unknowing eyes would see only formations of rock and believe chance
alone made them resemble an abode of men. This city was different,
however, as though some malevolent god, unwilling to wait for the slow
wearing away by rain and wind, had commanded the forest to attack and
consume all marks of man.

If they crept over the remains of a street, it was impossible to tell,
for dirt and a thousand small plants covered all, and everywhere the
trees. Much of the city was no more, with no sign that it had ever
been. Only the most massive of structures remained-the palaces and the
temples. Yet even they fought a losing battle against the forest.
Temple columns were so wreathed in vines that only the regularity of
their spacing betrayed their existence. Here the marble tiles of a
palace portico bulged with the roots of a giant tree, and there a wall
of alabaster, now green with mold, buckled before the onslaught of
another huge trunk. Toppled spires lay shrouded by conquering roots and
monkeys gamboled on no-longer gleaming domes that might once have
sheltered potentates.

The others seemed to feel the oppressiveness of the ruins, but neither
Conan nor Kang Hou allowed themselves to be affected, outwardly at
least. The Cimmerian would allow no such distractions from whatever
time he had left. He ghosted through the fading light with a deadly
intensity, eyes striving to pierce the layers of green and shadow
ahead. And then there was something to see. Lights. Hundreds of
scattered lights, flickering like giant fireflies.

Conan could see little from the ground, but nearby vines like hawsers
trailed down from a balcony of what might have once been a palace.
Sheathing his sword and shifting the silk-wrapped sorcerous weapon to a
place behind his back, the Cimmerian climbed one of the thick vines
hand over hand. The others followed as agilely as the monkeys of the
forest.

Crouching behind a green-swathed stone balustrade, Conan studied the
lights. They were torches atop poles stuck in the ground, forming a
great circle. A knot of Vendhyan cavalrymen clustered around each
torch, dismounted and fingering their swords nervously as they peered
at the wall of growth surrounding them. Oddly, no insects fluttered in
the light of the torches.

"Their ointment is better than yours, Khitan," Enam muttered, crushing
one of the stinging flies. No one else spoke for the moment. It was
clear enough what the soldiers guarded. The great circle of torches
surrounded a building more massive than any Conan had yet seen in the
ruined city. Columned terraces and great domes rose more than twice as
high as the tallest tree on the forest floor, yet others of the giant
trunks rose in turn from those terraces, turning the huge structure
into a small mountain.

"If they are in that," Hordo said softly, "how in Zandru's Nine Hells
do we find them? It must have a hundred leagues of corridor and more
chambers than a man could count."

"They are in there," Kang Hou said. "And I fear we must find them for
more than their lives."

Conan eyed the merchant sharply. "What is it you know that I do not?"

"I know nothing," Kang Hou replied, "but I fear much." With that he
scurried to the vines and began to climb back down. There was nothing
Conan could do but follow.

Once on the ground again, the Cimmerian took the lead. The two women
would be with Kandar, and Kandar would certainly be with Karim Singh
and Naipal. In the huge building, Kang Hou said, and for all the
denials, Conan was sure the man knew something. So be it, he thought.

It was a file of wraiths that flitted through the Vendhyan lines,
easily avoiding the few soldiers who rode patrol among the clusters at
the torches. Bushes and creepers grew from chinks between the marble
blocks of the great structure's broad stairs and lifted tiles on the
wide portico at their head. Tall bronze doors stood open, a thick
wreathing of vines speaking of the centuries since they had been
shifted from their present position. With his sword in advance, Conan
entered.

Behind him he heard the gasps of the others as they followed but he
knew what caused the sounds of astonishment and so did not look back.
His eyes were all for the way ahead. From the huge portal a wide aisle
of grit-covered tiles led between thick columns, layered with gold
leaf, to a vast central chamber beneath a dome that towered hundreds of
feet above. In the middle of that chamber stood a marble statue of a
man, more than half the height of the dome and untouched by time.
Conan's skin prickled at the armor on the figure, stone-carved to
represent studded leather. Instead of a nasaled helm, however, a
gleaming crown topped the massive head.

"Can that be gold?" Shamil gasped, staring up at the statue.

"Keep your mind to the matter at hand," Hordo growled, "or you'll not
live long enough for worrying about gold." His eyes had a glitter
though, as if he had calculated the weight of that crown to within a
feather.

"I had thought it was but legend," Kang Hou breathed. "I had hoped it
was but legend."

"What are you talking about?" Conan demanded. "This is not the first
time you have indicated you knew something about this place. I think it
is time to tell the rest of us."

This time the Khitan nodded. "Two millennia ago, Orissa, the first King
of Vendhya, was interred in a tomb beneath his capital city,
Maharastra. For five centuries he was worshiped as a god in a temple
built over his tomb and containing a great figure of Orissa wearing a
gold crown said to have been made by melting the crowns and scepters of
all the lands he had conquered. Then, in a war of succession,
Maharastra was sacked and abandoned by its people. With time the very
location of the city was lost. Until now."

"That is very interesting," Conan said dryly, "but it has nothing to do
with why we are here."

"On the contrary," Kang Hou told him. "If my niece dies, if we all die,
we must slay the wizard Naipal before he looses what lies in the tomb
beneath this temple. The legends that I know speak vaguely of horrors,
but there is a prophecy associated with all of them. 'The army that
cannot die will march again at the end of time.' "

Conan looked again at the carved armor, then shook his head stubbornly.
"I am here for the women first. Then I will see to Naipal and the other
two."

A boot crunched at one side of the chamber and Conan whirled, his
broadsword coming up. A Vendhyan soldier, eyes bulging beneath his
turbaned helm, clutched at the throwing knife in his throat and fell to
lie still on the floor. Kang Hou hurried to retrieve his blade.

"Khitan merchants seem a tough lot," Hordo said incredulously. "Perhaps
we should include him when we divide that crown."

"Matters at hand." Conan grunted. "Remember?"

"I do not say leave the women," the one-eyed man grumbled, "but could
we not take the crown as well?"

Conan paid no heed. His interest lay in where the soldier had come
from. Only one doorway on that side of the chamber, and that the
nearest to the corpse, opened onto stairs leading beneath the temple.
At the base of those stairs he could see a glimmer of light, as of a
torch farther on.

"Hide the Vendhyan," he commanded. "If anyone comes looking for him,
they'll not think that wound in his throat was made by a monkey."
Impatiently hefting his sword, he waited for Hasan and Enam to carry
the corpse into a dark corridor and return alone. Without a word, then,
he started down.


Chapter XXIII

In a huge high-ceilinged chamber far beneath the temple once dedicated
to Orissa, Naipal again paused in his work to look with longing
expectation at the doorway to his power. Many doorways opened into the
chamber, letting on the warren of passages that crossed and
criss-crossed beneath the temple. This large marble arch, each stone
bearing a cleanly incised symbol of sorcerous power, was blocked by a
solid mass of what appeared to be smooth stone. Stone it might appear,
but a sword rang on it as against steel and left less mark than it
would have on that metal. And the whole of the passage from the chamber
to the tomb, a hundred paces in length, was sealed with the adamantine
substance, so said the strange maps Masrok had drawn.

The wizard swayed with exhaustion, but the smell of success close at
hand drove him on, even numbing the ache behind his eyes. Five of the
khorassani he placed on their golden tripods at the points of a
carefully measured pentagon he had scribed on the marble floor tiles
with chalk made from the burned bones of virgins. Setting the largest
of the smooth ebon stones on its own tripod, he threw wide his
black-robed arms and began the first incantation.

"Ka-my'een dai'el! Da-en'var hoy'aarth! Khora mar! Khora mar!" Louder
the chant rose, and louder still, echoing from the walls, ringing in
the ears, piercing the skull. Karim Singh and Kandar pressed their
hands to their ears, groaning. The two women, naked save for their
veils, bound hand and foot, wailed for the pain. Only Naipal reveled in
the sound, gloried in the reverberations deep in his bones. It was a
sound of power. His power. Eye-searing bars of light lanced from the
largest khorassani to each of the others, then from each of those
smaller stones to each of its glowing brothers, forming a pentagram of
burning brilliance. The air between the lines of fire shimmered and
rippled as though flame sliced to gossamer had been stretched there,
and the whole hummed and crackled with fury.

"There," Naipal said. "Now the guardian demons, the Sivani, are sealed
away from this world unless summoned by name."

"That is all very well," Kandar muttered. Actually seeing the wizard's
power had drained some of his arrogance. "But how are we to get to the
tomb? My soldiers cannot dig through that. Will your stones' fire melt
that which almost broke my blade?"

Naipal stared at the man who would lead the army that was entombed a
hundred paces away-at least the man the world would think led it-and
watched his arrogance wilt further. The wizard did not like those who
could not keep their minds focused on what they were about. Kandar's
insistence that the women should witness every moment of his
triumph-his triumph!-irritated Naipal. For the moment Kandar was still
needed, but, Naipal decided, something painfully fitting would make way
for the prince's successor. At least Karim Singh, his narrow face pasty
and beaded with sweat, had been cowed to a proper view of matters.

Instead of answering the question, Naipal asked one in tones like the
caress of a razor's edge. "Are you sure you made the arrangements I
commanded? Carts filled with street urchins should have arrived by
now."

"They will come," Kandar answered sullenly. "Soon. I sent my body
servant to see if they have come, did I not? But it takes time to
gather so many carts. The governor might-"

"Pray he does only what he has been told," Naipal snarled.

The wizard rubbed at his temples fretfully. All of his fine plans, now
thrown into a hodgepodge of haste and improvisation by that accursed
pan-kur.

Quickly he took the last four khorassani from their ebony chest and
placed them on tripods of gold. So close to the demon's prison, they
would do for the summoning. He was careful to put the tripods well away
from the other five to avoid any interaction. A resonance could be
deadly. But there would be no resonance, no failure of any kind. The
accursed blue-eyed barbarian, the devil spawn, would be defeated.

"E'las eloyhim! Maraath savinday! Khora mar! Khora mar!"

Conan was grateful for the pools of light from the distantly spaced
torches, each only just visible from the last. Seemingly hundreds of
dark tunnels formed a maze under the temple but the torches made a path
to follow. And at the end of that path must lie what he sought.

Suddenly the Cimmerian stiffened. From behind came the sound of
pounding feet. Many pounding feet.

"They must have found the body," Hordo said with a disgusted glare that
took in Hasan and Enam.

Conan hesitated only an instant. To remain where they were meant a
battle they could not in all probability win. To rush ahead meant
running headlong into the gods alone knew what. "Scatter," he ordered
the others. "Each must find his way as he can. And Hanuman's own luck
go with us all."

The big Cimmerian waited only long enough to see each man disappear
down a separate dark passage, then chose his own. The last glimmers of
light faded behind him quickly. He slowed, feeling his way along a
smooth wall, placing each foot carefully on a floor he could no longer
see. With the blade of his sword he probed the blackness ahead.

Yet abruptly that blackness did not seem as complete as it had. For a
moment he thought his eyes might be adapting, but then he realized
there was a light ahead. A light that was approaching him. Pressing his
back against the wall, he waited.

Slowly the light drew closer, obviously bobbing in someone's hand. The
shape of a man became clear. It was no torch he carried, though he held
it like one, but rather what seemed to be a metal rod topped by a
glowing ball.

Conan's jaw tightened at this obvious sorcery. But the man coming
nearer looked nothing at all like the one he had seen at Kandar's
palace, the man he had thought was Naipal. Recognition came to him in
the same instant that the man stopped, peering into the darkness toward
Conan was though he sensed a presence. It was Ghurran, but a Ghurran
whose apparent age had been halved to perhaps fifty.

"It is I, herbalist," the Cimmerian said, stepping away from the wall.
"Conan. And I have questions for you."

The no-longer-so-old man gave a start, then stared at him in amazement.
"You actually have one of the daggers! How-? No matter. With that I can
slay the demon if need be. Give it to me!"

A part of the silk wrapping had scraped loose against the wall, Conan
realized, revealing the faintly glowing hilt of silvery metal. With one
hand he pushed the cloth back into place. "I have need of it,
herbalist. I will pass over how you have made yourself younger, and how
that torch was made, but what do you do in this place, at this time?
And why did you abandon me to die from the poison after coming so far?"

"There is no poison," Ghurran muttered impatiently. "You must give me
the dagger. You know not what it is capable of."

"No poison!" Conan spat. "I have suffered agonies of it. Not a night
gone but the pain was enough to twist my stomach into knots and send
fire through my muscles. You said you sought an antidote, but you left
me to die!"

"You fool! I gave you the antidote in Sultanapur! All you have felt is
your body purging itself of the potions I gave you to make you think
you were still poisoned."

"Why?" was all Conan said.

"Because I had need of you. My body was too frail to make this journey
alone, but as soon as I saw the contents of those chests, I knew I
must. Naipal prepares to loose a great evil on the world, and only I
can stop him. But I must have that dagger!"

A widening of Ghurran's eyes warned Conan as much as did the increase
in light. The Cimmerian dropped to a crouch and threw himself to one
side, twisting and stabbing as he did. A Vendhyan tulwar sliced above
his head, but his own blade went through the soldier's middle. The
dying man fell, and his two fellows, rushing at his heels, went down in
a heap atop Conan. The big Cimmerian grappled with them in the light of
their fallen torch. Ghurran and his glowing rod had vanished.

In a struggling pile the three men rolled atop the torch. One of the
Vendhyans screamed as the flames were ground out against his back, then
screamed again as a dagger found his flesh. Conan's hands closed on the
head of the soldier who had slain his companion by mistake. The sound
of a neck breaking was a loud snap in the dark.

But it need not be total dark Conan thought as he climbed to his feet.
Without hesitation he unwrapped the strange weapon. A dagger, Ghurran
had called it, but what monstrous hand could use it so, the Cimmerian
wondered. And it could slay the demon. What demon? But for whatever
hand or purpose the silvery blade had been wrought, its faint glow was
light of a sort in the blackness of the tunnel, if light of an eerie
grayish-blue. By it Conan recovered his broadsword and again began a
slow progress through the tunnels. Soon he heard voices, hollow echoes
in the distant passages. With difficulty he determined a direction.
Grimly he moved toward the source.

Thunder smote the chamber, and the obsidian form of Masrok floated in
the void of its fiery cage. The silvery weapons held in five of its
eight arms looked no different, yet in some fashion they had an aura of
having been used recently a pulsation that reached into the back of a
human mind and whispered of violence and death. Karim Singh and Prince
Kandar edged back from the huge figure, no matter that it was confined.
The bound women seemed frozen with shock and fear.

"You slice matters too finely, O man," Masrok boomed. Crimson eyes
flickered to the blazing pentagram in what could not possibly have been
nervousness. "A delay of but another beat of a human heart and my other
selves would have been on me. Who would serve you then, O man?"

"Masrok, I command you-" Naipal began when half a score of Vendhyan
soldiers burst into the chamber.

"Prince Kandar!" one of them cried. "Someone has-"

"You dare intrude!" Naipal howled. He spoke a word that made even him
shiver, and lightning flared from the largest of the khorassani. A
single shriek rent the air, and a cinder, only vaguely resembling the
soldier who had shouted, fell and shattered into charred chunks on the
stone floor. Turban-helmed men ran, screaming with terror.

Karim Singh and Prince Kandar both tried to speak at once. "My men are
not to be slain out of hand," Kandar shouted. "The message could have
been important," the wazam cried.

Both men clamped their teeth on further words as Naipal's dark eyes
came to rest on them. "He dies whom I wish to die, and what is
important is what I say is important. This is important!" The wizard
turned his attention back to the demon, which had watched what had
happened impassively. "You will open the way to the tomb for me,
Masrok. I care not how."

"From within this cage?" Masrok replied with a hint of its former
sarcasm.

"Open it!"

For a moment scarlet eyes met those of ebon, then the demon's mouth
opened, and the sound that emerged sent shudders through human flesh.
Only for an instant, however. The sound rose with blinding speed to
send a stabbing pain in the ears, and beyond. Yet still Masrok's
straining jaws told of a cry continuing.

Suddenly that call was answered. Suddenly there were-things in the
chamber. What exactly or how many it was impossible to tell, for it
pained the eye to gaze on them directly, and under a sidelong glance,
the numbers and forms seemed to shift constantly. Impressions were all
that could be made out, and they enough to bring a lifetime of
nightmares. Fangs dripping spittle that bubbled and hissed on the
stone. Razor claws gleaming like steel and needle spines glittering
like crystal. Sparkling scales in a thousand hues and leathery wings
that seemed to stretch farther than the eye could see, farther surely
than the walls of the chamber.

Kandar stood ashen-faced, trembling almost as much as the women, who
writhed against their bonds and wailed with frantic despair. Karim
Singh's lips moved rapidly and silently, and Naipal realized with
considerable amusement that the wazam prayed. The wizard realized as
well that those monstrous forms, so terrifying to human eyes, cowered
beneath Masrok's gaze. Perhaps, he thought, he had summoned and bound a
greater power than he knew. It increased his resolve to see the demon
returned to the prison it shared with its other selves.

Human skulls, dangling for ornament, swayed as Masrok raised one
silvery, glowing spear and pointed with it to the blocked passage.
Horrific forms flowed to the adamantine substance, clawing, gouging,
devouring, a seething mass that slowly sank into the stone, leaving an
open way behind it.

"Impressive," said a voice from one of the many entrances to the great
room.

Naipal spun, ready to utter the word that drew lightning from the
khorassani, and it seemed his heart had turned to ice in his chest.
"Zail Bal," he gasped. "You are dead!"

"You never would believe your eyes, Naipal," the newcomer said, "when
you wished to believe other than what you saw. Of course you have
reason to believe as you do. You saw me carried off by rajaie while far
from my implements." Zail Bal's dark eyes narrowed. "And some of my
amulets had been most cunningly tampered with. Still, I managed to slay
the demons, though not without cost, it is true. I found myself
deposited on the shores of the Vilayet in an age-riddled body, too
frail to travel a league." His gaze went from the imprisoned Masrok,
once again watching the humans in silence, to the passage into which
the summoned beings had now disappeared. "You have done well for me in
my absence, apprentice. I had not managed to locate this place before
my ... accident."

"I am no longer the apprentice," Naipal snarled. "I am the court
wizard! I am the master!"

"Are you," Zail Bal's chuckle was dry. "Karim Singh may have his
throne, and Kandar may call himself general, but the army that lies
below will march for me, Naipal, not for you. The demon will serve me."

Naipal's eyes flickered to the khorassani. Did he dare? He had never
known that Zail Bal sought Orissa's tomb, and that fact raised
unpleasant possibilities. Could he risk that the former court wizard
did not also know the words of power? Would the other have risked
confronting him without that knowledge? So. If either began to speak
the words, the other would also. The nature of the stones was to accept
only one master at a time. If neither man gained control quickly
enough, both would perish, as well as every living thing for leagues.
Naipal had no interest in taking the other man with him as he died. He
wanted victory, not death.

"You said your body was age-riddled," Karim Singh said suddenly in a
voice that quavered, "yet you appear younger than I. No more than
forty. I remember you well, and you were older than that when . . ."
His voice trailed off at Zail Bal's chuckle. It was dry this time as
well, like the dust of the grave.

"Yes, I am younger than I was and I will be younger still. But what of
you, Naipal? Do you suffer from exhaustion that sleep will not cure?
Are there pains behind your eves, splitting your skull?"

"What have you done-" Naipal whispered, then screamed it. "What have
you done?"

The other wizard laughed and as he spoke, his voice never lost its
sound of amusement. "Did you think I kept no cords to my apprentice,
Naipal? They were useless over the distance from Turan but once I was
across the Himelias ... aaah. Now I drain the vitality from you through
those cords, Naipal, though not exactly as the rajaie drained it from
me. You will not grow old. Merely tired. So tired you cannot stand or
even hold your head up. But do not fear that I will let you die,
Naipal. I would not do such to my faithful apprentice. No, I will give
you eternal life. I will put you in a safe, dry place, with only the
endless thirst to distract you from the pains in your head and the
nibbles of the rats. Of course the rats will stop their nibbling when
you wither sufficiently. You will be a desiccated husk, holding life
until it crumbles to dust. And I assure you I will see that it takes a
very long time."

Naipal had neither moved nor spoken during Zail Bal's recitation. The
fool should have lulled him, he thought. Now he would have to take the
gamble. There would come a moment when the former court wizard let his
attention lapse and then Naipal would begin the words, in a whisper. By
the time Zail Bal realized what was happening, it would be too late. It
must be too late.

A gasp from Karim Singh caught a corner of Naipal's mind. The shifting
mass of beings that Masrok had summoned had returned, flowing from the
mouth of the passage to the tomb.

"They are done, O man," the eight-armed demon announced. "The way is
clear."

All eyes went to the passage. Zail Bal stepped by the seething horror
without looking at it, not as though the sight pained his eyes but
rather as if he simply could not be bothered by it at the moment. Even
Kandar and Karim Singh overcame their fear enough to move closer.
Naipal began to whisper furiously.

Crouching near the end of one of the passages that let into the great
underground chamber, Conan weighed the silvery weapon in his hand. A
dagger, Ghurran had called it. Or Zail Bal, as he now named himself.
And the Cimmerian could see the weapon's twin clasped by the huge
eight-armed shape. Much had been said in that chamber that he would
ponder later, but it was another thing that Ghurran/Zail Bal had said
that was of interest now. The weapon he held could slay the demon, by
which Conan assumed he had meant the towering obsidian form. Masrok, he
had heard it called. Perhaps it could slay the others as well.

Once more Conan tried to look at the demons and found his eyes sliding
away unbidden. Their sudden appearance from the other passage, just
when he was on the point of entering while the men argued, had been a
shock. But now that all eyes peered into the passage from which the
monstrosities had come, it might just be possible for him to reach the
women before he was even seen. As for what came then ... With a
fatalistic grimness he hefted his broadsword in one hand and large
silvery dagger in the other. Then he must bar pursuit long enough for
the women to flee. Treading with light swiftness, he moved into the
subterranean chamber.

His eyes shifted constantly from the women to the others. Vyndra and
Chin Kou, naked and bound at wrists and ankles, lay trembling with eyes
squeezed shut above their veils. Naipal appeared to be muttering under
his breath, watching the other men, and they in turn had eyes only for
the passage. It led to an army, had Ghurran, or Zail Bal, claimed? Kang
Hou's army that would come at the end of time perhaps? Warriors like
the one he had faced? He could not waste time in worry over that now.
The demons that had come from the tunnel seemed fixed on the huge ebon
form floating in nothingness in the center of the chamber, while it-

Conan's breath caught in his throat. Those crimson eyes now followed
him. He quickened his pace toward the women. If the demon called a
warning, he might still ... The massive arms holding glowing spears
moved back. Conan snarled silently. He could not dodge two thrown
spears at once. Flipping the silvery weapon in his hand, he hurled it
at the demon and threw himself toward the women.

A titanic blast rocked the chamber, and Conan landed atop the women as
the earth heaved beneath his feet. Stunned, he fumbled desperately for
his own dagger as he took in the horrific scene. The humans were
staggering to their feet where the blast had flung them. Splintered
shards of black stone lay in ten small pools of molten gold. And Masrok
stood on the stone floor, the glowing dagger it had already held now
mirrored by another.

"Free!" Masrok cried, and with gibbering howls of demonic terror, the
beings it had summoned fled, flowing up into the ceiling, melting into
the floor. Scarlet eyes that now glittered went to Naipal. "You
threatened me with this blade, O man." The booming voice was heavy with
mockery. "How I wished for you to strike. From the inside your barriers
were impervious but from the outside ... Any unliving thing could cross
from the outside easily, and the crossing of this demon-wrought blade,
this metal of powers you never dreamed of, shattered all of your bonds.
All!"

The cords on the ankles first, Conan told himself as he found his
knife. The women could run with hands tied if need be.

"I always intended your freedom," Naipal said hoarsely. "We made a
pact."

"Fool!" the demon snarled. "You bound me, made one of the Sivani your
servant. And you!" The furious rubiate gaze pinned Zail Bal, who had
been attempting to edge toward one of the passages. "You intended the
same. Know, then, the price for daring such!"

Both wizards shouted incantations, but the glowing spears sped from
Masrok's hands, transfixing each man through the chest. Almost in the
same instant the silvery weapons leaped back to the demons' grasp,
bearing their still-living burdens. Shrieks split the air, and futile
hands clutched at glowing hafts now staining with blood.

"Know for all time!" Masrok thundered. And the demon spun, blurring
into an obsidian whirlwind streaked with silver.

Then it was still once more and the wizards were gone. But a new skull
dangled below the head of each spear, a skull whose empty sockets
retained a glow of life, and the shrieks of the wizards, echoing
faintly as though from a great distance, could yet be heard.

Slicing the last cord binding a wrist, Conan heaved the women to their
feet. Weeping, they tried to cling to him, but he pushed them toward
the one passage that showed the light of a torch. The marked path lay
there, one they could follow even without his aid.

"You also," Masrok growled, and Conan realized the demon's eyes were
now on him. Keeping his face to the creature, he began to follow the
women, but slowly. If the worst happened, there must be distance
between him and them. "You thought to slay me, puny mortal," the demon
said. "You, also, will know-"

A sound like all the winds of the world crying through the maze of
passages filled the great room, but no breath of air stirred. The
rushing howl died abruptly, and at its ending a mirror image of Masrok
stood at either end of the chamber.

"Betrayer!" they shouted with one voice, and it was as though a
thunderhead had spoken. "The way that was to open at the end of time is
opened beforehand!"

Masrok shifted slightly, that monstrous ebon head swiveling from one
form to the other.

"Slayer!" they cried as one. "One of the Sivani is dead, by the deeds
of a Sivani!"

Masrok raised its weapons. No particle of the demon's attention
remained on Conan. The Cimmerian spun to hasten after the women, and he
found them halted before the passage entrance, Kandar confronting them
with the curved blade of his tulwar.

The Prince's face was pale and sweaty, and his eyes rolled to the
tensing obsidian giants with barely controlled terror. "You can keep
the Khitan wench," he rasped, "but Vyndra is mine. Decide quickly,
barbarian. If we are still here when their battle begins, none of us
will survive."

"I have decided already," Conan said, and his broadsword struck. Twice
steel rang on steel and then the Vendhyan Prince was falling with a
crimson gash where his throat had been. "Run!" Conan commanded the
women. He did not look back as they darted into the tunnel. The ground
rumbled beneath his feet. The battle of demons was beginning.

Sound pursued them in their flight through the subterranean passages.
The crash of lightnings confined and the roar of thunder imprisoned.
The earth heaved, and dirt and rock showered from above.

Sheathing his sword, Conan scooped up the women, one over each
shoulder, and redoubled his speed, fleeing from the pool of light into
the debris-filled darkness. The flames on distantly spaced torches
wavered as the walls on which they hung danced.

Then the stairs were before him. He took them three at a time. In the
vast-domed temple chamber, massive columns shivered and the towering
statue swayed. Without slowing, Conan ran past the tall bronze doors
and into the night.

Outside, the circle of torches remained, swaying as the ground heaved
in swells like the sea, but the soldiers were fled. Trees a hundred and
fifty feet high cracked like whips.

Conan ran into the forest until a root caught his foot and sent him
sprawling with his burdens. He could not rise again, only cling as the
earth shook and rippled in waves, but at last he looked back.

Bolts of lightning burst toward the sky from the temple, hurling great
blocks of stone into the air, casting a blue illumination over the
frenzied forest. And dome by dome, columned terrace by columned
terrace, the huge temple fell, collapsing inward, ever sinking as it
leaped like a thing alive. Lightning flashes revealed the ruin no
higher then the flailing trees surrounding it, then half their height,
then only a mound of rubble.

Abruptly there was no more lightning. The ground gave one final
tortured heave and was still.

Conan rose unsteadily to his feet. He could no longer see even the
mound. In truth he did not believe it was any longer there. "Swallowed
by the earth," he said softly, "and the entrance sealed once more."

His arms filled suddenly with naked, weeping women, but his mind was on
other matters. Horses. Whether or not the demons had been buried with
the tomb, he did not intend to remain long enough to find out.


Epilogue

Conan rode through the dawn with his jaw set grimly, wondering if
perhaps he could not find just a few Vendhyan soldiers who would try to
contest his passage or perhaps question the Vendhyan cavalry saddle on
his horse. It would be better than the icy daggers of silence being
hurled against his back by Vyndra and Chin Kou. Of necessity he gripped
the reins of their horses in one hand; the fool women would not have
left the forest otherwise.

"You must find us garments," Vyndra said suddenly. "I will not be seen
like this."

"It is not seemly," Chin Kou added.

Conan sighed. It was not the first time they had made the demand,
though they had no idea as to where he might obtain the clothes. The
past hour of silence had come from his retort that they had already
been seen by half the populace of Gwandiakan. He twisted in the saddle
to look back at them. The two women still wore the veils, if nothing
else. He had asked why, since they obviously hated the small squares of
silk, but they had babbled incomprehensively at him about not being
recognized, and both had gone into such a frenzy that someone might be
watching, for all it had been pitch dark in the middle of the forest at
the time, that he did not mention it again. They stared at him now with
dark, furious eyes peeping over the top of their veils, yet each sat
straight in her saddle, seemingly unaware of the nudity of which she
complained.

"We are almost to the old well," he told them. "Kuie Hsi should be
there with garb for you both."

"The well!" Vyndra exclaimed, suddenly trying to hide behind the high
pommel of her saddle. "Oh, no!"

"There might be people!" Chin Kou moaned as she, too, contorted. Before
they could slip from the saddles and hide-they had done that once
already-Conan kicked his horse to a gallop, pulling theirs along
behind, heedless of their wails of protest.

The wall of the old well remained, surrounded by trees much smaller
than those of the forest. The well itself had long collapsed. A portion
of a stone wall still stood nearby, perhaps once part of a caravansary.
There were people there as well. Conan grinned as he ran his eye over
them. Hordo and Enam tossing dice. Hasan and Shamil seated with their
backs against the wall. Kang Hou sipping from a tiny cup held
delicately in his fingers, while Kuie Hsi crouched by a fire where a
kettle steamed. The men looked the worse for wear, sprouting bandages
and poultices, but they sprang to their feet with glad shouts at his
appearance.

Kuie Hsi did not shout but rather came running with bundles in her
arms. The other two women, Conan saw, had slid from the saddles and
were hiding behind their horses. He dismounted, leaving them to their
flurry of silks, and went to meet the men.

"I thought you were dead for certain this time," the one-eyed man
muttered gruffly.

"Not I," Conan laughed, "nor any of the rest of us it seems. Our luck
has not been so bad after all." The smiles faded from their faces,
producing a frown on his. "What has happened?"

"A great deal," Kang Hou replied. "My niece brought much news with her.
For one thing, King Bhandarkar is dead at the hands of the Katari.
Fortunately Prince Jharim Kar managed to rally nobles to Bhandarkar's
young son, Bhunda Chand, who has been crowned as the new king, thus
restoring order. On the unfortunate side, you, my cheng-li friend, have
been condemned to death by Royal Edict, signed by Bhunda Chand, for
complicit, in the assassination of his father."

Conan could only shake his head in amazement. "How did this madness
come about?"

The Khitan merchant explained. "One of Jharim Kar's first moves after
the coronation-and that was a hasty affair, it seems-was to ride for
Gwandiakan with the young King and all the cavalry he could muster.
Supposedly he found evidence that Karim Singh was a leader of the plot,
and thus must be arrested and executed before he could become a
rallying point for disaffection. It is rumored, however, that the
Prince blames the wazam for an incident involving one of his wives.
Whatever the truth, Bhunda Chand's column met the caravan on which we
and the wazam traveled. And one Alyna, a servant of the Lady Vyndra,
gave testimony that her mistress and a pale-skinned barbarian called
Patil had plotted with Karim Singh and spoken in her presence of
slaying Bhandarkar."

A shriek of fury announced that Vyndra had just had the same
information from Kuie Hsi. The Vendhyan noble-woman stormed from behind
the horses, clutching half-donned silken robes that fluttered after
her. "I will strip her hide! That sow will speak the truth, or I will
wear out switches on her!"

"I fear it is too late for any such action on your part," Kang Hou
said. "Alyna-perhaps I should say the Lady Alyna-has already been
confirmed in your titles and estates. The Royal Edict concerning you
not only strips you of those possessions but gifts her with your life
and person."

Vyndra's mouth worked silently for a moment, then she rounded on Conan.
"You are the cause of this! It is all your fault! What are you going to
do about it?"

"I am to blame?" Conan growled. "I enslaved Alyna?" Vyndra's eyes
almost started from her head in fury and he sighed. "Very well. I will
take you to Turan with me."

"Turan!" she cried, throwing up her hands. "It is a pigsty, unfit for a
civilized woman! It-" Suddenly it dawned on her that her gesture had
bared her to the waist. Shrieking, she snatched the still-sliding silk
and dashed for the shelter of the horses.

"A woman whose temper equals her great beauty," Kang Hou said, and
whose deviousness and vindictiveness exceed both."

Conan waved the words aside. "What of Gwandiakan? Will it be safe to
hide there for a day or two while we recuperate?"

"That will not be possible," Kuie Hsi said, joining them. "The people
of Gwandiakan took the earthquake as a sign from the gods, especially
when they discovered that carts had been assembled to take the children
from the city to an unknown destination. A wall of the fortress had
collapsed. The people stormed the fortress, freeing the imprisoned
children. Soldiers who tried to stop them were torn limb from limb.
Jharim Kar has promised justice in the matter, but in the meanwhile his
soldiers patrol the streets heavily. I cannot believe any Western
foreigner would long escape their notice."

"I am glad for the children," Conan said, "for all it had nothing to do
with me, but this means we must ride for the mountains from here. And
the sooner the better, I think. What of you, Kang Hou? Are you, too,
proscribed?"

"I am but a humble merchant," the Khitan replied, "and so, no doubt,
beneath Alyna's notice. To my good fortune. As for your journey over
the mountains, I fear that not all who came with you will return to
Turan. You will pardon me." Bowing, he left before Conan could ask what
he meant, but Hasan took his place.

"I must speak with you," the young Turanian said. "Alone." Still
frowning after Kang Hou, Conan let himself be drawn off from the
others. Hasan pressed a folded square of parchment into the Cimmerian's
hand. "When you return to Sultanapur, Conan, take that to the House of
Perfumed Doves and say it is for Lord Khalid."

"So you are the one who will not return to Turan," Conan said, turning
over the square of parchment in his hands. "And what message is it you
send to Yildiz's spy master?"

"You know of him?"

"More is known on the streets of Sultanapur than the lords of Turan
would believe. But you have not answered my question."

The Turanian drew a deep breath. "I was sent to discover if a
connection exists between the Vendhyans and the death of the High
Admiral. Not one question have I asked concerning that, yet I know
already this land is so full of intrigues within intrigues that no
clear answer can ever be found. I say as much in the letter. As well I
say that I can find no evidence connecting the 'fishermen' of
Sultanapur with the matter, and that the rumors of a northland giant in
the pay of Vendhyans is just that. A rumor. Lord Khalid will recognize
my hand, and so know it for a true report. It is unsealed. You may read
it if you wish."

Conan stuffed the parchment into his belt pouch. There would be time
for reading-and for deciding whether to visit the House of Perfumed
Doves-later. "Why are you remaining?" he asked. "Chin Kou."

"Yes. Kang Hou has no objections to a foreigner marrying into his
family." Hasan snorted a laugh. "After years of avoiding it, it seems I
will become a spice merchant after all."

"Be careful," Conan cautioned. "I wish you well, but I do not believe
the Khitans are much less devious than the Vendhyans."

Leaving the young Turanian, Conan went in search of Kang Hou. The
merchant was seated on the wall of the caved-in well. "Soon you will be
fleeing Vendhya," the Khitan said as Conan approached. "What of your
plans to sack the land with an army at your back?"

"Someday perhaps. But Vendhya is a strange land, mayhap too devious for
a simple northlander like me. It makes my thoughts whirl in peculiar
fashions."

Kang Hou arched a thin eyebrow. "How so, man who calls himself Patil?"

"Just fragments, spinning. Odd memories. Valash, sitting in the Golden
Crescent on the morning the High Admiral died. A very hard man, Valash.
He would never have let two such beauties as your nieces leave his ship
except to a slaver's block. Unless someone frightened him into it
perhaps. But then, you are a very hard man for a poor merchant, are you
not, Kang Hou? And your niece, Kuie Hsi, is an extremely able woman.
The way in which she passed for a Vendhyan woman to seek information in
Gwandiakan. And knowing Naipal was among those who rode to the Forests
of Ghelai, though I have heard his face was known but to a handful.
Were you aware that a Vendhyan woman was delivered to the High Admiral
as a gift on the morning he died? She vanished soon after his death, I
understand. But I have never understood why the Vendhyans would sign a
treaty with Turan and kill the High Admiral within a day of it. Kandar
seemed truly shocked at the news, and Karim Singh as well. Strange,
would you not say, Kang Hou?"

All through the rambling discourse the Khitan had listened with an
expression of polite interest. Now he smiled, tucking his hands into
his broad sleeves. "You weave a very fanciful tale for one who calls
himself a simple northlander."

Returning the smile, Conan put his hand on his dagger. "Will you wager
you are faster than I?" he asked softly.

For an instant Kang Hou wavered visibly. Then, slowly, he brought his
hands into the open. Empty. "I am but a peaceful merchant," he said as
though nothing had happened. "If you would care to listen, perhaps I
can weave a tale as fanciful as yours. Having, of course, as little to
do with reality."

"I will listen," Conan said cautiously, but he did not move his hand
from the dagger hilt.

"I am from Cho-Hien," the Khitan began, "a small city-state on the
borders of Vendhya. The lifeblood of Cho-Hien is trade, and its armies
are small. It survives by balancing its larger, stronger neighbors one
against another. Largest, strongest and most avaricious of Cho-Hien's
neighbors is Vendhya. Perhaps the land rots from within, as you say,
but the ruling caste, the Kshatriyas, are tierce men with eyes for
conquest. If those eyes turn to the north, they will fall first on
Cho-Hien. Therefore Cho-Hien must keep the Kshatriyas' gaze to the
east, or to the west. A treaty with Turan, for instance, might mean
that Kshatriyan ambitions would look not toward the Vilayet but toward
Khitai. My tale, I fear, has no more point than yours but perhaps you
found it entertaining."

"Entertaining," Conan agreed. "But a question occurs to me. Does Chin
Kou share Kuie Hsi's talents? That is," he added with a smile, "if Kuie
Hsi had any talents out of the ordinary."

"Chin Kou's sole talent is that she remembers and can repeat every word
that she hears or reads. Beyond that she is merely a loving niece who
comforts an aging man's bones. Though now it seems she will comfort
another."

"That brings another question. Does Hasan know of this?"

"Of my fanciful tale? No." A broad grin split the Khitan's face. "But
he knew what I was, as I knew what he was, before ever we reached the
Himelias. He will make a fine addition to my family. For a foreigner.
Now I will ask a question," he added, the grin fading. "What do you
intend concerning my fanciful tale?"

"A tale spun by a northlander and another spun by a Khitan merchant,"
Conan said musingly. "Who in Turan would believe if I told them? And if
they did, they would find ten other reasons for war, or near to war.
For there to be true peace between Turan and Vendhya, the Vilayet will
have to expand to swallow Secunderam, perhaps enough to separate the
two lands for all time. Besides, true peace and true war alike are bad
for smugglers."

"You are not so simple as you claim, northlander."

"Vendhya is still a strange land," Conan replied with a laugh. "And one
I must be leaving. Fare you well, Kang Hou of Cho-Hien."

The Khitan rose and bowed, though he was careful to keep his hands away
from his sleeves. "Fare you well ... Conan of Cimmeria."

Conan laughed all the way to the horses. "Hordo," he roared, "do we
ride, or have you grown so old you have put down roots? Enam, to horse!
And you, Shamil. Do you ride with us, or remain here like Hasan?"

"I have had my fill of travel and adventure," Shamil replied earnestly.
"I return to Sultanapur to become a fisherman. For fish!"

Vyndra pushed her way past the men scrambling into saddles and
confronted Conan. "What of me?" she demanded.

"You do not wish to go to Turan," Conan told her, "and you cannot
remain in Vendhya. Except as Alyna's ... guest. Perhaps Kang Hou will
take you to Cho-Hien."

"Cho-Hien! Better Turan than that!"

"Since you have asked so nicely, if you keep me warm on the cold nights
in the mountains, I will find a place for you dancing in a tavern in
Sultanapur."

Her cheeks colored, but she held out her arms for him to lift her to
her saddle. As he did, though, she pressed herself against him briefly
and whispered, "I would much rather dance for you alone."

Conan handed her her reins and turned away, hiding a smile as he
vaulted to his own saddle. There would be problems with this woman yet,
but amusing ones he thought.

"What of the antidote?" Hordo asked. "And Ghurran?"

"I saw him," Conan replied. "You might say he saved all of us with what
he told me." Ignoring the one-eyed man's questioning look, he went on.
"But are we to sit here until the Vendhyans put all our heads on pikes?
Come! There's a wench called Tasha waiting for me in Sultanapur." And
with a grin for Vyndra's angry squawl, he booted his horse to a gallop,
toward the mountains towering to the north.