Hesitantly she looked at the sun, then jerked her gaze away. Already that distended yellow ball was past the zenith. Well past the zenith. And tonight came a configuration of the stars that would not come again for a thousand years. If Bombatta did not bring the girl in the next few hours, if the girl did not have what she had been sent for … . Taramis bit at her lip, heedless of the blood that came. It could not be so. It would not be so. She refused to die knowing that power and immortality would come to someone else a thousand years hence.
A deferential cough made her whirl, ready to flay whomever had dared to disturb her.
Xanteres stood in the doorway, his face as deceptively gentle as ever, but a gleam of exultation in his dark eyes. “She is come,” he said grandly. “Bombatta has brought her.”
Taramis abandoned dignity. She pushed past the white-bearded high priest and ran, speeding down corridors and stairs till she came to the great alabaster-columned entry hall of the palace, with its high, vaulted ceiling. And there, dusty, bedraggled and travel-stained, stood Bombatta, with his helmet under his arm, and Jehnna, clutching a dusty bundle, barely recognizable as once-white wool, to her bosom. Taramis hardly even noticed the massive black-armored warrior. Her eyes were all for the girl.
“Do you have it?” she whispered, approaching slowly. “By all that is sacred and holy, child, do you have it?”
Hesitantly, Jehnna held out the bundle she had clasped to her breasts. She swayed, and Taramis saw that she was exhausted. But the time for rest was not yet. Other, more important matters came first.
The tall Zamoran noblewoman looked around frantically for the high priest, ready to shout for him, but he was there. Reverently Xanteres held forward an elaborate golden casket within which were crystal supports wrought with all of Taramis’ sorcerous skill and cunning.
“Place them there, child,” Taramis said.
From the bundle Jehnna produced the Heart of Ahriman, sanguinely glowing, and placed it in the casket. Taramis held her breath. The dirty white wool dropped to the marble floor, and Jehnna was cradling the golden Horn of Dagoth in her hands.
As that, too, was laid on crystal supports within the casket, Taramis’ hand twitched with the desire to touch it. Not yet, she reminded herself. Now it was death for any hand but Jehnna’s. Later it would be hers alone to know.
With great reluctance Taramis closed the golden casket. “Take it,” she commanded the high priest. “Guard it with your life.” Xanteres bowed himself from her presence, and she turned her attention back to Jehnna and Bombatta. The girl swayed again. “Where are the bath girls?” Taramis demanded. “Must I have the fool wenches flayed?”
Two white-robed young women, black hair pinned in curls close to their heads, sped into the hall and fell to their knees before Taramis.
“The Lady Jehnna is travel weary,” the beauteous princess told them. “She must be bathed and massaged. She must be properly garbed.”
Jehnna smiled warmly, if tiredly, at the woman as they hurried to her. “It is so good to see you again,” she said. “It seems years since I have had a proper bath. But where are Aniya and Lyella?”
The white-robed women’s faces went blank, and Taramis hastened to fill the silence. “They are ill, child. You will see them later. Take her away! Can you not see she is near collapse?” She watched them lead Jehnna from the hall, then turned smiling to Bombatta. “It is done, then,” she sighed.
“It is done,” he said, but something in his eyes made her frown.
Her mind raced, searching for what could possibly be left yet undone. “The thief?” she said. “He is dead?”
“He is dead,” Bombatta replied.
“You put your sword through him.”
“No, but—”
Her hand flashed out, cracked against his face. “When the One holds the Horn,” she quoted, “the sky-eyed thief must die. An he lives, danger comes on his shoulder and death rides his right hand.” She drew a deep breath. “You know what is written in the scrolls.”
“He lies entombed with half a mountain atop him,” Bombatta growled sullenly.
“Fool! If you did not handle his corpse … . I will not take a chance, Bombatta, not even a small chance, not now. It is all too close to fruition. Treble the guard.”
“For one thief who is certainly dead?” he barked.
“Do it!” she commanded coldly. “Let not so much as a mouse pass the palace walls without a spear in it.” Not waiting for his reply she turned away. The Horn was at last in her possession, and if she could not touch it, she could at least gaze upon it. She had to gaze upon it.
The city of Shadizar was called ‘the Wicked,’ and what the eyes of its citizens had not seen had never happened under the heavens, yet the crowds in the streets gave wide passage to the four who rode into the city as dusk drew near. Weary and lathered were their horses, and the four—one a woman—seemed no less travel-worn, yet there was a grimness in their eyes, most especially in the strange blue eyes of the young giant who led them, that made even City Guardsmen decide to look elsewhere for evildoers and bribes.
Conan knew where a stable stood not far from Taramis’ palace, and the horses were no sooner turned over to a hostler than he hurried into the streets.
Akiro caught up to him with an effort. “Slow down, my young friend. You must have a plan.” Malak and Zula joined them, and the look of the four was enough to gain them as clear a path as when they had ridden.
“There is no time for slowing,” Conan growled. “Or have you not looked at the sun?”
Ahead of them Taramis’ palace came in view. The tall, iron-bound gates were closed, and six guards stood before them with slanted spears. On the walls more guards were appearing every moment, until they stood two paces apart all the way around the palace.
The wizard pushed Conan to the mouth of an alley. “Now will you agree to a plan?”
Malak snatched an orange from a fruit-monger’s cart that stood beside the alley. The peddler opened his mouth, looked at the small man’s companions, and closed it again.
“Now I see there is no use to a plan,” Conan replied slowly. “I must try to rescue her, for I have vowed it, but I fear that I and any who go with me will die in the attempt. It is best the rest of you leave.”
“I will go with you,” Zula said fiercely. “I owe you a life, and I will follow you until it is repaid.”
“You are fools,” Akiro said despairingly. “Do you mean to attack the palace as if you were an army?”
The fruit-monger’s mouth fell open.
“What about you, wizard?” Malak asked around a mouthful of orange. “Can you not help with some incantation or spell?”
“No doubt,” Akiro said drily, “I could hurl a fireball that would destroy those gates as if they were made of parchment. But I must stand in the open to do it, with the result that someone will probably put a spear in me, leaving the three of you to battle tenscore guards, if not twice so many.”
Eyes wide, the fruit-monger threw his weight behind his cart and pushed it away as fast as his legs would carry him.
“That does not sound like such a good idea to me,” Malak laughed weakly. “Mitra, who would believe anyone would go to all this trouble to get into that place, considering what my cousin went through to get out.”
“I thought your cousin died in those dungeons,” Conan said absently. His eyes and his mind were still on the palace and the fast-approaching night.
Malak shook his head, trying to avoid Zula’s glaring frown. “Two of them died. One escaped … .” He trailed off as Conan swiveled his head to look at him. Akiro raised a quizzical eyebrow. “That is, he did die. All of them died. I know nothing about tunnels or anything of that sort. I don’t remember. I swear it!”
“I could break his head,” Zula said thoughtfully.
“Then he could not talk,” Akiro said. “But he does not need his manhood for speech. I could shrivel that.”
Conan merely fingered the hilt of his d
agger.
The small thief looked from one pair of eyes to another, then sighed. “Oh, very well. I’ll show you.”
Conan gestured him to lead on, then followed quickly on his heels as Malak started down the alley.
It was a snaking path the little man took, along alleys slick with offal and stinking of urine and excrement, and it led away from the palace. At last, behind a stone building many streets away, he ducked into a shadowed doorway. The Cimmerian trod on his heels down rough steps in deeper dark and musty air.
“We need light,” Conan sighed reluctantly. “Akiro?”
Abruptly there was light, a ball of it resting on the wizard’s fingertips. They were in a cellar, filled with sagging crates and splintered barrels. Dust and cobwebs lay thickly on everything. Akiro found a torch among the rubble and transfered the fire from his fingers to that.
“There is a way from this place to a palace?” Zula said disbelievingly.
On hand and knees Malak counted the large, square stones of the floor along one wall. “Here,” he said, pointing to one that seemed no different from any other. “This is the one. If I remember it right.”
“You had better,” Zula said darkly.
Conan knelt by the stone. At one side there was just enough gap for him to get a grip with his fingertips. He pulled the block up, worked his fingers under it, and heaved it over. Below it was a dark hole, slightly smaller than the stone slab. He seized the torch from Akiro and thrust it into the opening. It was walled in stone, and along one side there were holes spaced properly for hands and feet.
“Ah!” said Akiro. “Whoever built that palace was a wise man. However strong a fortress, it is always wisdom to have a bolt-hole or two. I do not doubt there are others.”
Conan swung his legs into the hole. “Then it will take us inside the palace walls.”
“Are you not forgetting tenscore guards?” Malak demanded. “Sigyn’s Bowl, Cimmerian, they will not be one fewer because you are inside.”
“You are right,” Conan said. “This improves our chances but little. You have done your part, my friend. You need not come further.”
Zula spat loudly, and Malak twisted his mouth. “Amphrates’ jewels,” he breathed heavily, “had best be worth more gold than I think they are.”
With a grin Conan began his descent.
xxii
Dusk rolled across Shadizar as Taramis looked down once more upon the courtyard where the Sleeping God lay. The canopy was gone now, and a different circle of golden-robed priests prayed around the god. Her four bodyguards, and six more black-armored warriors hand-picked by Bombatta, stood watch about the courtyard. She did not like that. They knew what they served, but they had never seen any part of the ceremonies, and there should be no outsiders to witness what would happen this night. But Bombatta’s stupidity had made it necessary.
True, it was unlikely in the extreme that the thief still lived. Even did he live, surely one man, and he a thief out of the streets, could do nothing to hinder her plans in the slightest. But the Scrolls of Skelos spoke of the possibility … no, they spoke of the certainty of danger if the thief lived. And that fool Bombatta had the temerity to sulk somewhere in the palace because she had upbraided him. Something would have to be done about Bombatta when this night was over.
With a last look at the darkening sky, she returned to her chambers. There was much yet to be done.
From the chest of ebony inlaid with silver she took a twist of parchment. Wine she poured from a crystal flagon into a goblet of chased gold. The parchment gave up a white powder which dissolved quickly in the wine. A second goblet stood beside the first on the lacquered tray. It was not sorcery, this potion, but it had no taste and would do its work well, and all spells were forbidden this night save those required by the Rite of Awakening.
She clapped her hands, and, when a slave woman in short white tunic appeared, commanded, “Bid the Lady Jehnna attend me.” Soon now, she thought. Soon.
Thrusting the torch ahead of him, Conan ran in a half-crouch down the low-ceilinged tunnel, its stone walls gray with mold.
“Not so fast,” Malak complained. “Mitra’s Bones, could not whoever built this have given it enough height for a man to stand up?”
“You can almost stand as it is,” Zula said, prodding the small thief to greater speed with her staff in his ribs.
Malak glared at her, but only said, “I hope at least they have stairs at the other end. I don’t fancy another climb of fifty paces in the dark.”
Conan cursed as the torchlight showed him a blank wall ahead, then he became aware that the ceiling was higher here. He straightened, and found himself in another shaft like the one they had descended, complete with holes along one wall for hands and for feet. Without hesitation he climbed.
“A plan,” Akiro called after him hoarsely. “You know not what is up there.”
Conan climbed on. It was not easy with the torch in one hand. The method required keeping both feet in place and balancing while the one free hand darted to a higher handhold. A single miss in that quick grab, and the long fall back down the shaft was inevitable. Too, it was a way of climbing that should have been done slowly and carefully, but Conan had no time for being careful. He pushed on as if it were stairsteps he climbed.
At the top of the shaft there was a black iron bracket on one stone wall for the torch, and a foothole on the opposite side of the shaft from those he had climbed, so that a man could straddle it if he did not mind getting close to the torch’s flame. The stone above had a ring in its center, no doubt to aid closing the bolt-hole behind refugees should the palace’s lords and ladies ever find the need to use the route. There had been none on the stone at the other end, as no one had ever been expected to enter from that direction.
The torch seared Conan’s back as he heaved against the stone above him. With a mighty shove he toppled it away from the shaft, and raised his head into a dungeon lit only by the obstructed glow of his torch. The walls were a rough-cut stone, and the floor was covered with pale straw dried to dusty brittleness. A small creature chittered and rustled away as the Cimmerian climbed out.
Pausing only to secure the torch, Conan moved to the thick, iron-bound door. An iron plate on the outside of the door covered a slot for checking on prisoners. A careful push showed the huge lock was not fastened. Slowly he cracked the door, grimacing at the squeal of the crudely-wrought iron hinges. The stone-walled hallway outside was empty and dark.
“You should have waited,” Akiro panted, scrambling from the shaft. “You had no way to know what lay on this side of that stone.”
“It had to be a dungeon,” Conan said. “Malak’s cousin could hardly have made his escape from the great hall, or from Taramis’ bedchamber.”
The old wizard stared at him, astounded. “Logical. I did not expect such thinking from you. You always seem to go at problems with a sword, rather than logical thought.”
Malak, who was allowing Zula to help him into the cell, muttered, offended, “How do you know my cousin did not escape from Taramis’ bedchamber? All the men of my family have a great attraction for women.”
Zula snorted, and Malak opened his mouth again, but Conan cut short any argument with a sharp gesture. “Do that later,” he said, and slipped into the hall.
A choice of direction was easy. One way lay more darkness, the other a glow of light. Dropping his torch on the bare stone floor of the corridor, Conan drew his sword and moved toward the light. Short of the dim glow that spilled into the hall he stopped in consternation.
This was the jailer’s chamber, a large cube with a rough cot in one corner, well lit by torches in iron sconces. On the far side stairs led upward, and at a table of crude-hewn planks by those stairs sat the jailer, a big balding man with as much hair on his arms and legs as he had once had on his head. He chewed at a joint of beef held in one thick-fingered hand, while the other scratched casually beneath his leather jerkin. He faced the hall where Conan stood hidden onl
y by darkness, and from where he sat he could be halfway up the stairs shouting an alarm before the Cimmerian could reach the table.
As Conan tensed to take the chance, Zula touched him on the arm and shook her head. Swiftly she doffed the strip of cloth that covered her small breasts. Malak licked his lips ostentatiously, but she ignored him, tucking the cloth into the other piece she wore about her loins. Then, with a welcoming smile on her face, she padded into the jailer’s chamber, using her staff as if it were a walking stick.
The balding man froze with the joint half-raised to his mouth. “Where in Zandru’s Nine Hells did you come from?” he growled. “You’re no prisoner of mine.”
Zula did not speak, but the roll of her slim hips increased as she continued toward him.
The jailor tossed the joint onto the table, missing a cracked pottery plate, and scrubbed the back of a broad hand across his greasy mouth as he stood and moved around the table. “If you’re not a prisoner, you’re not supposed to be here,” he said thickly. “And being where you’re not supposed to be can get you put to the question. Painful, that. Why don’t you talk? You got a tongue? No matter. If you want to avoid the hot irons and the strapado, wench, you’re going to treat me like a walking god and the love of your life, all rolled into one.”
He reached for her, then. Zula’s face did not change as her staff, suddenly gripped with two hands, whipped up into the big man’s crotch. A strangled squawk burst from his throat, and his eyes bulged almost out of his fat face. He doubled over, and her staff whirled around to crack the side of his balding head. With a sigh, he crumpled to the floor stones. Calmly Zula donned her halter once more.
“Most effective,” Akiro said with a smile, as the others joined her. Malak studiously avoided looking at her bosom even after she was covered.
Conan did not wait for talk. The coming of night weighed him like massive stones on his shoulders. Sword in hand, he raced up the stairs, barely hearing the clatter as the rest followed behind.