“I will not believe Conan is dead,” she told him.
“One of the marks,” the black-armored man said, pointing to an arrow scratched in the rock. “Now to find the horses. We can cover leagues before full dark.”
“Bombatta, I will not believe it. Did you see him fall?”
“I saw,” Bombatta said harshly. He did not slow his pace, and his iron grip on her wrist made certain she kept up. “He was running, like the thief and dog that he was, and the black warriors cut him down. Him, and the others, as well. I had to pull down the ceiling to block them off from us. Ah, the horses.”
The hobbled animals were still bunched together. Jehnna could not have told whether they had wandered from where they were left even had she thought of it, and her mind was on other matters.
“Perhaps he was only wounded,” she began, then cut off at the strange look Bombatta was giving her. His eyes burned with intensity.
“We could go anywhere,” he said softly. “We could go to Aghrapur. A Turanian wizard, or even King Yildiz himself, would give enough for those things you carry to keep us in luxury for the rest of our lives.” Abruptly he lifted her onto a saddle. “Guard them well, Jehnna,” he said, and began loosing the horses’ hobbles. He tied the reins of each horse he freed to those of the next, and when he mounted he had the other four animals on a long lead.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. “We cannot take those.”
“We will need them,” Bombatta said. “It is a long way to Aghrapur.”
“We go to Shadizar, not Aghrapur. And I will not leave the others without horses so long as there is any chance one of them remains alive. If you wish to take the horses, then you must take me back into the temple and show me their bodies.”
Bombatta shook his head. “It is too dangerous for you.”
“Dangerous or not,” she insisted, “I will not leave him so.”
The fury that clouded the massive warrior’s face made her want to cower. It took all of her will to keep her back straight, to look him in the eye with outward calm.
Dropping the reins of the other horses, he moved his own closer to hers. “Him! Him, and again him! We could have gone anywhere.” Every word came from him like a piece of iron. “Anywhere, child.” Abruptly his scarred visage twisted in pain. Jehnna stared; she had never before seen Bombatta show pain. The agonized grimace lasted but a moment, then his face was normal again, save that in going from his eyes the burning seemed to have left them dull and flat. “We go to Shadizar,” he said hoarsely and, taking the reins from her hands, began to lead her through the maze.
Jehnna clutched the bundle, containing all she had come so far to find, tightly against her breast, and would not allow herself to look back. Conan or her destiny. One at the cost of the other. She wondered how there could be such pain. How could the gods allow it? Slumping, no longer able to find the strength to sit straight, she wept softly and let herself be led.
xx
Through thick clouds of smothering darkness Conan clawed his way back to consciousness and scrambled to his feet with sword in hand. Akiro and Zula stared at him in amazement. Malak tossed a fist-sized rock into the shadows between the columns and dusted his hands.
“About time you were awake,” the small thief said. “By Mehen’s Scales, I was beginning to think you were going to sleep until we were all dead.”
“How long?” Conan said. He felt the side of his head. It was tender, and a fan of dried blood descended from his hair
Malak shrugged, but Akiro said, “Perhaps two turns of the glass, perhaps a little longer. It is difficult to tell exactly. We found you lying like a stunned ox. I did what I could, but it is best with head injuries to let wakefulness come naturally.”
“I have a few herbs that help blows to the head,” Zula said, “but there is no water to steep them in.”
The Cimmerian nodded, and immediately wished he had not as the chamber seemed to spin around. Desperately he fought off the dizziness. He could allow no weakness now.
The far end of the dim chamber was now a mass of stone, fragments of fluted columns mixed with chunks of the mountain above in sizes from that Malak had held to boulders larger than a man. Three of the rusted metal stands Conan had thought made to hold torches had been set upright. Their torches burned atop them, casting a pale yellow pool about the four, a pool that quickly faded into shadows among the columns. Not all the light came from the torches, however. From down the unblocked passage came a flickering azure glow that was painful to the eye.
“What is that blue light?” Conan asked
“A ward,” Akiro told him. “I managed to lay nine sets before those tall fellows got the door open. Then I had to trigger the first and could lay no more. It is dangerous to place one of those while another burns close by.”
“How long,” Conan began, and got his answer before he could complete the question.
The azure flickering increased in speed, and Akiro bent to draw symbols in the dust with a finger and mouth his silent incantations. With a last flash of brilliant blue the light was gone. In an instant it began again, and a shriek echoed down the corridor as it did.
Akiro tilted his head as if listening, then sighed. “One was very fast, but not their wizard, worse luck. If Bombatta had to slay one of them, he could as well have killed the one with the red crest. He is their mage, and without him they would never even have gotten that door open, much less reached my wards. And I must fight him with little more than my bare hands.”
“I do not see why he had to kill any of them,” Zula said angrily. “They offered no violence toward us, only speaking to … .” Her words trailed off with a sympathetic look at Conan, but he ignored it.
“I doubt they would have let us go without a fight,” he said. “Not with Jehnna. In any case, I’ll not let them spear me like a wild pig just because Bombatta started it.”
“That’s it,” Malak said. “Ogon’s Toenails, if a man attacks you, you carve him, and if it’s all a mistake you can burn a little incense in the temples for his spirit.”
“Not always the best way,” Akiro said drily. “But those men are foul.”
“I saw no foulness in them,” Zula protested, and the wizard snorted.
“That is because you are not a mage, nor did you read the plaques, as I did. The unease we felt as we entered was put there by those men, and by those who came before them, over centuries. Human sacrifice was the least of it. They make the shamans you res—ah, assisted me with, seem as babes at play.”
“I care not if they’re cannibals,” Conan said. “It is past time for us to be getting out of here. Bombatta and Jehnna get closer to Shadizar with every moment, and I do not doubt he’ll do his best to leave us out of what has happened when he tells Taramis of it. I do not intend to be cheated of my promised reward.”
Akiro looked at him pityingly, and Zula gaped. “But I thought … we thought … Jehnna … .” She gestured helplessly at the jumbled stone filling the other end of the chamber.
“Bombatta pulled that down,” Conan said. “He could not wait to face me in Shadizar. But I cannot think he pulled it down on his own head, nor on Jehnna’s. We will dig our way out, and follow. There is but a night and a day left before we must be back in Shadizar.”
“You intend to dig through the mountain?” Malak said incredulously. The other two looked at the Cimmerian as if he had gone mad.
“I saw this chamber when it was whole,” Conan told them as he strode to the mass of rock. “I know how much of it is gone.” He seized a torso-sized piece of a column and heaved it loose; smaller stones slid free and bounced around his feet. “The passage Bombatta followed is no more than three or four paces from us. And we have only to clear a way wide enough to squeeze through.” He carried the stone well into the columns before dropping it. There was room there for all they had to move and more. When he returned, the others remained where they had been, still staring at him. “Well?” he demanded. “Would you rather d
ie here?” Without a word Zula came to dig at the stone.
Malak came more slowly, and not without a look over his shoulder at the old wizard. “Aren’t you going to help, Akiro? You could wave your arms, and make all this disappear.”
“You display your ignorance openly,” Akiro snorted. “In any case, I must watch to trigger the next ward when this one fails. Unless you want your first warning of those spearmen to be when one spits you like a lamb.”
“You trigger all of them now, old man. Then you could help.”
The gray-haired wizard laughed derisively. “Do I teach you how to steal, my small thief? Be about something you know how to do.”
Conan labored like an automaton, fixing his mind on the goal of freedom, refusing to allow the immensity of the task to daunt him. Two stones he moved for every one moved by Zula and Malak together. Sweat oiled him till he glistened in the torchlight, and there was always more sweat to wash away the dust. When, with a loud rumble, rock cascaded from above to replace all they had done, he chivied the others back to work without ceasing himself. He must reach Jehnna. He must repay his debt to Valeria. Jehnna. Valeria. The two swirled in his mind till he could not tell which drove him most.
When another ward failed and Akiro chanted to replace it, Malak stopped to watch, knuckling the small of his back. “You really read those plaques, Akiro?” he asked.
“Work,” Conan said, and after one glance at the Cimmerian’s grim face Malak bent back to the stones.
Akiro, however, seemed to want to talk. He settled himself against a column and began. “Yes, I read them. Enough of them, at least. The golden horn that … .” He frowned at Conan, then went on. “It is the Horn of Dagoth.”
“The black warrior called it that,” Malak panted.
“Do not interrupt,” the wizard replied acerbically. “Millennia ago there was a war between the gods, which was not a rare thing in those times. In a great battle Dagoth was defeated by having the Horn ripped from his head and carried far away. The Horn carried what might be called his life-force, and without it he slowly turned to stone. According to the plaques, he sleeps, and when the Horn is placed again on his head he will wake.”
“So that is why Taramis wants it,” Conan said, still laboring. “To wake a god. Surely a god could bring Valeria back to life.”
“Yes,” Akiro sighed, “I suppose Dagoth could restore her to the living.”
“So Taramis did not lie,” Conan said with satisfaction.
As if he had received rest and cool water the Cimmerian increased his efforts. As the others slowed, he carried stones with greater speed. Zula fell trying to keep up with him, and could not stand. Conan paused to carry her back to Akiro, then rushed back to his labor. Later, when Malak dropped, the Cimmerian merely dragged him clear of the path he must follow from the stony blockage to where he threw the rocks.
He knew vaguely that they had dug past the end of the chamber, into the corridor, and still rock was piled before him. He knew it in a dim recess of his mind, but to acknowledge it might be the beginning of defeat, and he suppressed it ruthlessly without even being aware that he did so. Time lost all meaning to him. Effort lost all meaning. As if he were himself made of stone, incapable of tiring, he attacked the barrier relentlessly. Twin images drew him on. Valeria. Jehnna. He would not stop while life remained.
He tugged at a stone jammed into the tangle, tugged harder. It came free, and as it did the wall of rocks fell toward him. He stumbled back, cursing, barely avoiding being buried to the waist. Starting to turn away with the stone, he stopped abruptly with the realization that he had been looking over piled stone at a pale spot of light in the distance. He looked again, just to be sure he was not imagining it. The glow was still there. Letting the stone he had fall, he moved back to the chamber of columns.
Akiro sat cross-legged, staring gravely at the azure light from the corridor. Zula barely looked up, but Malak said tiredly from where he lay, “So you’re finished, too, eh, Cimmerian? Well, we gave it a good try. Erlik take us, if we didn’t.”
“I am through,” Conan said. “There is light. Sunlight, maybe.” Malak made a strange sound, and quivered. It took Conan a moment to realize the small thief was laughing.
“We made it,” Malak wheezed. “By Zandru’s Darkest Hell and Mitra’s Bones, they cannot stop us, Cimmerian.”
“You are certain, Conan?” Akiro said worriedly.
“It could be torches in another chamber,” Conan replied, “but there would have to be scores of them. The passage slopes upward. It must break ground.” Or it could rise into the mountain, he thought, but would not say it. The light could be from sorcery or Zandru’s Seventh Hell, but he needed to reach the surface above, and he would not admit it could be anything else.
“We must hope for sunlight,” Akiro said finally. “The seventh ward yet holds, though not for much longer, and two more wait. You must get Zula and Malak out of here as quickly as possible. I will follow as soon as I can.” He scurried back to his post at the mouth of the corridor. “Go man, or you may yet kill us all.”
Conan helped Zula to her feet, and turned to find Malak already wavering erect. The black woman tried to walk on her own, too, but the big Cimmerian found himself helping the pair to scramble over the last mound of stones and stagger upward toward the light. That glow seemed to have a restorative quality, for by the time Akiro caught up to them, both Zula and Malak were climbing without support and making good speed.
Even so, the old wizard called out, “Hurry! Hurry!” And there was that in his voice that made them move even faster.
The corridor ended in a rectangular opening, and the four stumbled out into the temple courtyard and the light of a sun not-yet fully risen in the east. Malak and Zula stared at it as if they had not believed they would ever see a sunrise again.
Conan had eyes only for the temple, with its huge columns and fallen statues. Unless the tall warriors were fools, he thought, there would be sentries. Yet as he hastened them all across the carven stones of the courtyard nothing moved from the temple save rock doves, flapping out from their nests high behind the columns. Then he realized there was no need to put sentries above when all of your enemies were trapped like rats beneath the mountain.
In the maze the thirsty whickering of the horses drew them quickly to the animals. Conan noted the missing hobbles and the tied reins, then the four of them were hurrying for the waterskins. Despite a throat that felt like gravel Conan first poured water into his horse’s mouth. When it was his turn he tipped back his head and drank until forced to breath, let the water splash over his face while he gulped air, then drank more. He finished by giving his horse another drink. The animal would have more need to be refreshed than he, for he intended to ride it hard.
Suddenly the ground quivered beneath their feet. Conan grabbed the reins, but before he could soothe his mount another tremor shook the earth, followed by a rumbling boom from the direction of the temple.
Malak, clinging to a trembling horse, muttered, “What in the Nine-Fold Names of Khepra was that?”
Akiro coughed smugly. “I changed the incantation slightly. When they broke through the seventh ward, the last two were triggered together. Those spearman will not wake from this sleep, nor rise from this tomb to slaughter innocents for Dagoth.” He smiled suddenly at Malak. “Do you see now why I could not invoke all the wards at once?”
“’Tis good they will not trouble us further,” Conan said, climbing into his saddle, “but we must ride if we are to reach Shadizar by the ceremony tonight. I will not let Bombatta cheat me of Valeria’s life.”
The smile disappeared from Akiro’s face. “I did not tell you, Conan, when I thought we would die, for a man should not be burdened at his death with matters he cannot change. In truth, even now I fear it is too late. I tried to stop it when it could have been stopped, before she entered the furnace, but I was too slow.”
“You babble, Akiro,” Conan growled. “Speak what is on your mi
nd, or let me ride for Shadizar.”
“It was all on the plaques,” Akiro said. “The Rite of Awakening takes three nights, and on each night a girl is sacrificed. On the Third Night, the sacrifice is the One who Bears the Horn, the innocent. It will be Jehnna.”
“Perhaps it is not her,” Zula said pleadingly. “Not even Bombatta would take her back to that.”
“Bombatta called her the One,” the old wizard sighed. “He knows she is to die.”
Conan touched the dragon amulet on his chest. Pain filled him, and he wanted to howl it aloud as he had never given voice to pain before. Valeria. “Jehnna will not die,” he said through clenched teeth.
“I like the girl, too,” Malak protested, ignoring Zula’s glare, “but, Badb’s Holy Buttocks, we’re all exhausted, and we could not reach Shadizar before nightfall if we killed the horses trying.”
“Then when my horse dies,” Conan replied grimly, “I will run, then crawl. But before all the gods I vow, Jehnna will survive this night if I must die for it.” Without waiting to see if the others followed, he kicked his horse into motion, into a race with the rising sun.
xxi
From a balcony Taramis looked down on the marble-tiled courtyard where rested the Sleeping God, a canopy of fringed golden silk raised to shield him from the blazing sun. In a circle about the canopy, unprotected and perspiring, knelt half a score of priests in their robes and crowns of gold, chanting their prayers. Since the First Anointing there had continually been a circle of priests offering their devotions to Dagoth, with only a pause the night before for the Second Anointing.
Taramis ran her eyes over the other balconies overlooking this court, yet she knew there would be no one there to observe who should not see. For three days this part of her palace had been all but sealed from the rest. No slave or servant would come near to it without her express command, even if guards had not been posted with orders to slay any who tried. It was not that that cut at her like a whip’s lash. She knew very well what it was that truly preyed on her mind, what it was she did not want to think about.