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 full-bellied 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 by 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. Every 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.