Beneath the scarlet hood in the mirror a hawknosed face was painted with disbelief, and raven eyes shone hatred at the big youth. A ball of light suddenly oozed from the place where the blade entered the mage’s robes, flowed down the sword and exploded, hurling Conan away like a flung stone. Shaking his head, the Cimmerian got dazedly to his feet just as Amon-Rama stepped out of the mirror, its surface first bulging around him, then suddenly vanishing into vapor.
The necromancer did not look at Conan. Once he touched the sword that thrust from his chest as if to convince himself of its actuality. With staggering steps he moved toward the crimson gem atop its slim pelucid column.
“Cannot be,” the Stygian muttered. “All power would have been mine. All power … .”
His hand closed about the glowing stone, and the wail that ripped from him then, going on as if it would never end, made all the other sounds he had uttered pale to whispers. Scarlet light glared from between his fingers, brighter and brighter, until it seemed that his hand itself had taken on the color.
“Crom!” Conan whispered as he realized the hand had become crimson.
And the redness spread, up the sorcerer’s arm and through him, till he was as a statue of congealed blood, yet keening still. Abruptly the form collapsed into a sanguinary pool that boiled and bubbled, vermilion steam rising till naught was left save his broadsword lying on the crystal floor. And the gem, hanging unsupported in the air.
Carefully, with more than one hesitant glance at the crimson stone floating above his blade, Conan retrieved his weapon. The leather-wrapped hilt was hot in his hand, but the sword seemed unharmed. Swiftly he backed away from the sorcerous stone, and his skin crawled. Almost had he touched the accursed thing, before Amon-Rama began his fatal game.
With a deafening crash another of the mirrors burst, and Conan’s companions poured into the chamber.
“ … and I told you it would work,” Akiro was saying. “It took only the death of the sorcerer, releasing his hold on his majicks.”
“Ravana’s Weeping Eyes,” Malak said scornfully. “You said he was lucky. There was no luck. This Stygian should have known better than to oppose Malak and Conan.”
Akiro turned his attention to the Cimmerian. “You were lucky. One day your luck will run out like the sands from a glass, and what then?”
“You saw?” Conan asked, now that he could get a word in edgewise.
Akiro nodded, and Zula shivered. “That ape,” she murmured, looking about as if she suspected it might only be hiding.
“It is gone,” Conan said. “Let us find Jehnna and this Mitra-accursed key, and be gone as well.”
As though her name had summoned her Jehnna appeared, stepping through the gap left by the mirror from which Amon-Rama had come. Behind her was blackness made darker by the glittering crystal and mirrors in the chamber. She did not look at any of them, but walked slowly, surely, to the radiant red gem, hanging still where the Stygian sorcerer had left it.
“No!” Conan and Bombatta shouted together, but before either man could move she plucked the stone from the air.
“The Heart of Ahriman,” she said softly, smiling at the blood-red jewel in her hand. “This is the key, Conan.”
“That?” Conan began, then cut off as a tremor shook the floor. The walls shivered, and ominous crackings sounded.
“I should have known,” Akiro mused. “It was Amon-Rama’s will that held it, and with him dead—” Abruptly he stopped to glare at the others. “Well? Did you not hear me? Run, or we are all as dead as the Stygian!” As if for punctuation another quaver ran through the palace.
“The well!” Conan commanded, though the thought of that swim with the possibility that the palace might collapse atop them all was not one he enjoyed.
Akiro shook his head. “Allow me to show what I can do without the interference of Amon-Rama.” He gave Malak a significant look. “Watch.” Chanting silently, he moved his arms in strange patterns—it looked to Conan much like what he had seen at the wizard’s camp, yet in some fashion different—clapped his hands, and a fiery sphere shot from between his palms to strike a mirrored wall. There was no eruption, this time. Rather the ball of the fire spread and hollowed, like the flames of a hot coal touched to parchment. In only a moment it extinguished, leaving behind a roughly circular doorway melted in the crystal wall. “There,” Akiro said. “Now, Malak, have you seen anything to surpass—”
This time the palace danced and swayed, and a portion of another crystalline wall fell with a shattering crash.
“We’ll talk of our triumphs later,” Conan said, grabbing Jehnna’s arm. The others hesitated not a moment in following him through the way Akiro had provided.
Down glittering corridors of ethereal beauty they ran, and when the corridor bent away from the direction they wished to go Akiro melted yet another hole in the sparkling crystal walls. Faster and faster the shocks came, until they blended into one continuous gyration of the entire palace. Ornaments of unearthly exquisiteness burst apart, walls toppled in bounding chunks of pellucid stone, and twice entire stretches of the ceiling fell in solid blocks behind them.
Then Akiro’s magic burned its way through yet again, and they rushed out onto the landing. The lake was in turmoil, choppy waves radiating out from the palace. Conan heaved the hide boat, heavier for Bombatta’s armor already lashed in its bottom, to the water, handed Jehnna into it, then had to hold the craft against the scar-faced warrior’s attempt to push off before the others could scramble aboard.
When all were in, Conan leaped into the boat and snatched up a paddle. “Now,” he growled at Bombatta. The other man dug his paddle in without speaking.
Behind them the crystal palace scintillated with all the hues of the rainbow gone mad. Lightnings leaped from tall spires, up into cloudless skies.
“Faster,” Akiro urged, staring anxiously over his shoulder. “Faster!” He glared at Conan and Bombatta, wielding their paddles with all their might, and grunted. Trailing his hands in the water, the wizard began to chant, and slowly the water mounded beneath the boat. Swelling, the wave rushed forward, carrying the frail vessel faster than all their stroking could have. Malak loudly tried to pray his way through all known pantheons.
“Too much magic,” Conan grumbled.
“Perhaps,” Akiro replied, “you would rather wait until that palace—”
With a roar like the rending of the earth the crystal palace burst asunder. A hammering wind smote their backs, and then the wave they rode was caught and overwhelmed by a greater wave. Bow down at a precipitous angle, the hide craft hurtled across the lake. All Conan could do was dig in his paddle and hope to hold them straight. Did they turn sideways to that wall of water, all was lost.
The beach of black sand approached at incredible velocity, then disappeared beneath the wave. Abruptly the bow of the boat struck against the crater’s slope, and the vessel cartwheeled, catapulting them all into frothing water.
Conan struggled to his feet, fighting the water’s attempt to pull his legs from under him. Jehnna, floudering, swept by him, and he seized a handful of her robes and pulled her to him. She flung one arm around his neck and clung to him, panting, as the water rushed away, leaving them standing a quarter of the way up the slope of the crater.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She nodded, then held up the hand not clutching him. “And I did not lose the key.” A crimson glow seeped between her fingers.
The Cimmerian shivered, and did not try to stop her when she moved away from him. From beneath her dripping robes she produced a black velvet bag into which she slipped the gem.
Conan shook his head. The longer this journey went on, the less he wanted to do with it. And yet—his hand closed around the golden amulet at his neck, the amulet Valeria had given him—and yet there were reasons.
He was surprised to realize that all of the party were not only alive but on their feet, if soaked and bedraggled, and staring at one another in di
sbelief that they still lived. Fear had apparently driven the horses despite their hobbles, for they stood, whickering nervously, higher still on the slope. The boat lay below them, and from there to the water were scattered the remains of their camp, such as was left. The cooking pot was gone, and half the waterbags, and a single blanket remained tangled in the rushes.
On the far side of the lake the only sign that the palace had ever been was a vast hole which the waters of the lake were quickly filling. Akiro stared toward it with something approaching sadness on his face. “All a creation of his will,” he said quietly. “It was magnificent.”
“Magnificent?” Zula’s voice squeaked with incredulity. “Magnificent?”
“I would as soon be far away from it,” Jehnna said. “And I can sense the treasure, now that I hold the key.” At that Bombatta hurried to her, hovering protectively and glaring at Zula and Conan as if the greatest danger came from them.
Malak rubbed his hands together, and lowered his voice for the Cimmerian’s ear alone. “Treasure. I like the sound of that better than wizards. We will help ourselves to whatever the girl does not want, eh? Soon we’ll be in Shadizar, living like kings.”
“Soon,” Conan agreed. His eyes on Jehnna were troubled, and his hand tightened on the amulet until the golden dragon dug into his palm. “Soon.”
xiv
It was possible, Conan reflected as he rode southward, that Akiro’s cures were worse than the wounds they were meant to heal. Gray-flanked mountains reared about him, cut with a hundred narrow valleys that could serve as roads for attack and an endless string of pinched passes where ambush could blossom in blood, but he found it hard to keep his mind on anything but the bandages, smeared with foul-smelling ointment, that covered the gashes the ape-creature had opened. Worse than the stench, they itched with a fury. Surreptitiously he scratched at the linen folds wrapped around his chest.
“Do not do that,” Jehnna said briskly. “Akiro says they must not be disturbed.”
“They are foolishness,” Conan grumbled. “I have had scratches such as these before. Wash the blood off, then let the air to them. That’s all I ever needed before.”
“They are not scratches,” she said firmly.
“And this grease stinks.”
“’Tis a pleasant herbal smell. I begin to wonder if you have sense enough to take care of yourself.” She went on, oblivious to his dumbfounded stare. “You will leave your bandages alone. Akiro says that his ointment will heal your wounds completely in only two days. He said I must keep an eye on you, but truly I did not believe it.”
Conan twisted in his high-pommeled saddle to glare back at the wispy-haired wizard. Akiro met his stare calmly, and the others were watching him as well. Malak and Zula wore looks of smug amusement. Bombatta seemed lost in thought, but his eyes rested on Conan in a fashion that made it clear he would not have wept had the ape-inflicted gashes proved fatal.
“I must say you do not seem grateful,” Jehnna continued. “Akiro labors to make you well, and you—”
“Mitra’s Mercies, girl,” Conan said abruptly “do you have to go on so?”
Hurt clouded her face, and the look in her big eyes made him feel it was his fault. “Forgive me,” she said shortly, and let her mount fall back. Malak replaced her.
“Sometimes,” Conan told the small thief, “I think I liked that girl more when she was affrighted of her own shadow.”
“I like them with more to fill the arm,” Malak said, and flinched at the Cimmerian’s cold gaze. “Ah, look you, it’s not the girl I want to talk of. Do you know where we are?”
Conan nodded. “I know.”
“Then why are you not turning another way? Inti put his hand over us! Another league at most, and we’ll be getting close to the village where we found Zula.” The wiry man made a sound half sigh and half groan. “They’ll not be glad to see us again, Cimmerian. It will be luck if we get no more than a fistful of arrows from ambush.”
“I know,” Conan said again. He looked back at Jehnna. She rode with her head down and the hood of her pale cloak pulled far forward to hide her face. Every line of her spoke of a deep sulk. “Must we ride all the way back to the village?” he called.
Jehnna jerked erect, blinking. “What? The village?” She looked around, then pointed to the east, to a strait pass rising between two dark, snow-capped peaks. “We must go that way.”
“Praise all the gods,” Malak breathed, and at that moment two-score mounted Corinthian soldiers burst upon them with longswords gleaming in their fists.
Conan wasted no wind on curses; he had not a moment for it in any case. His broadsword came into his hand barely in time to block an overhand strike that would have split his skull. He kicked a foot free of its stirrup to boot another Corinthian in red-crested helm from his saddle, and as if it were all one motion slashed open his first attacker’s throat. He saw Malak bend beneath a flashing blade to sink his dagger under the bottom of a polished breastplate, then another cavalryman was upon him.
“Conan!” The shrill scream reached him even as he engaged. “Conan!”
The one glance the Cimmerian could spare was enough to freeze the breath in his throat. A laughing soldier had his hand tangled in Jehnna’s dark hair, and their two horses danced in a circle, only her frantic grip on the tall pommel of her saddle keeping her from being unseated.
One glance Conan could spare, and when his eyes turned back to his opponent the Corinthian gasped at what he saw in those icy sapphires, for it was his own death. The man was no mean hand with his long cavalry sword, but he had no chance against the grim northland fury he faced now. Thrice their blades met, then Conan was turning away from a bloody corpse that toppled to the rocky ground behind him.
Desperately Conan raced his horse for Jehnna. The slender girl had loosed one hand from her saddle to clutch at the first in her hair; her other hand had only a precarious, clawed hold on the pommel. The horses pranced and circled, and the Corinthian threw back his head in gales of laughter.
“Erlik take you, dog!” Conan snarled, and stood in his stirrups so that his backhand blow had all the strength of his massive body driving the whipping blade.
So great was his rage that he barely felt the shock as his razor steel sheared through the laughing soldier’s neck. Mouth frozen forever in mirth the Corinthian’s head flew from his shoulders; blood fountained from a torso that remained erect for moments longer, then rolled over the rump of the prancing horse. Fingers twisted in Jehnna’s hair almost pulled her from her saddle before they slackened in death. She slumped across the pommel, sobbing wildly and staring with bulging eyes at the headless body beneath her horse’s hooves.
It took Conan no more than an instant to take in the situation on the small battlefield. Malak now rode one of the smaller, Corinthian horses, and even as the Cimmerian looked he leaped from that to another, pulling back the rider’s head by the red crest on his helmet and slitting his throat. Flashes and roars accompanied Akiro on his mad dashes about the narrow valley. Every time the rotund wizard found time to breathe he began the arm motions that heralded his major displays of power, but each time horsemen in polished breastplates would close about him and, with a shouted curse, Akiro would startle them with a burst of light and a clap of thunder. The deflagrations and deafening bangs hurt no one, though, and the old man was finding less time after each to try his greater wizardries. Zula and Bombatta each attempted to fight to Jehnna’s side, but flashing tulwar and whirling staff were hard pressed simply to keep back the soldiers who strove to cut them down.
In the first fury of battle the very numbers of the Corinthians made it inevitable that the balance of dead would favor the Zamorans, but there were simply too many riders in red-crested helms. And dying bravely and stupidly when there were alternatives was one custom of the cities that had never found favor with Conan.
“Scatter!” he roared. Two cavalrymen closed with the big Cimmerian; his blade swept in a circle, severing a sword
arm at the elbow, axing deep into the second man’s shoulder. He wrenched his steel free without slackening his bellow. “Scatter! They are too many! Scatter!” Seizing Jehnna’s reins, Conan booted his horse toward the narrow pass she had indicated as the way they must go.
Three Corinthians spurred to put themselves in the fugitives’ way. Surprised grins of anticipation blossomed on their faces when Conan did not wheel in another direction; the grins turned to consternation when the Cimmerian galloped straight into them, his tall Zamoran mount bowling over a smaller animal. The Corinthian screamed as his thrashing horse rolled atop him, grinding him into the stony ground.
Stunned, the pair remaining fell back on defending themselves rather than attacking. Burdened with pulling Jehnna’s mount behind him, Conan knew he would have been hardpressed at best to fight a way past. Cold and methodically deadly, he taught them of their fatal mistake. He rode on from two fresh corpses—and one Corinthian screaming and coughing frothy blood—with eyes locked on the narrow pass, eyes as grim as death.
He could not afford to look back, and the knowledge gnawed at him. What if he did look back, and saw one of the others in need? He could not ride back to help. Jehnna must be gotten to the treasure, then to Shadizar with treasure and key, for Valeria. And even without Valeria, he knew he could not abandon the girl. She would get her throat cut, or be dragged behind a boulder by a cavalryman who thought it safe to ignore the unequal fight for a time. Teeth clenching till his jaw ached, he rode, and tried not to hear the sounds of battle fading behind.
xv
The valleys were purple with the shadows of mountains when finally Conan drew rein. He had not galloped all that time—the horses could not have stood such a pace for so long on flat ground, let alone in a maze of twisting valleys—but the animals could not travel forever even at a sensible speed. Besides, he was of a mind to find a place for the night before it was too dark to see.