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 silk-shrouded 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 centurie
s 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 loosing 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.