Akiro froze with one foot lifted for his next step. Slowly he turned back to face the big youth. “Skelos?”
“Aye, the Scrolls of Skelos. They tell what is to be found on this quest, and what must be done for it to succeed, or so says Taramis. You know of this Skelos?”
“A thaumaturge centuries dead,” Akiro replied absently, “who wrote many volumes of sorcerous lore. All now as rare as virgins in Shadizar.” He thrust his head forward, staring intently at Conan through the darkness. “Taramis has these in her possession? The Scrolls of Skelos?”
“She quoted from them as if she does. She must. Where are you going?”
Akiro was disappearing toward the hut with a quickness that belied his complaints of feebleness. “Time is short, you say,” he called over his shoulder. “We must leave for the mountains before first light, and I need my sleep.”
Smiling, Conan strolled after him. Betimes, he thought, the best snare was one you did not know you had laid.
When the Cimmerian reached the fire Jehnna sat staring into the flames with daydreaming eyes. Bombatta, still drawing the wetstone along his blade, shot irritable glances at Malak, who sprawled beneath a blanket with snores like ripping sailcloth coming from his open mouth. The scar-faced warrior was not the only one bothered by the allintrusive sound. From within the hut came angry mutters, of which only the words “ … need my sleep,” “ … old bones,” and “ … like an ox with a bad belly,” were recognizable.
Abruptly Akiro’s frowning face appeared in the doorway of the hut, eyes fixed intently on Malak and lips moving. Malak’s snore ended as if sliced by a razor. With a gasp the wiry thief bolted upright, staring about him fearfully. Akiro was no longer to be seen. Hesitantly, one hand feeling at his throat, Malak stretched himself out again. His breathing deepened quickly, but barely enough to be heard above the crackle of the fire. Moments . later snorting rumbles began to erupt from the hut.
Jehnna giggled. “Is he going with us?”
“Yes.” Conan sat crosslegged beside her. “We will leave before the sun rises.”
“In the direction I say, this time?”
“In the direction you say.”
He could feel her eyes on him; they made him unaccustomedly awkward. He had no small experience with women. He could deal with impudent serving girls and old merchants’ too-young wives, with brazen doxies and nobles’ hot-eyed daughters. This girl was a virgin and more. An innocent, Akiro termed her, and Conan thought the word fit. Still, there was one thing that did not fit with that description.
“Before,” Conan said, “when Bombatta and I all but came to blows, you changed, for a space of moments at least. You sounded much like Taramis.”
“For a few moments I was Taramis.” His eyes widened, and she giggled. “Oh, not in truth. I did not want the two of you fight, so I pretended that I was my aunt, and that two of the servants were squabbling.”
“I am no servant,” Conan said sharply.
Jehnna seemed taken aback. “Why do you sound offended? You serve my aunt, and me. Bombatta is not offended that he is my aunt’s servant.”
The sussuration of wetstone on steel stopped, unnoticed by the two at the fire.
“He can bend his knee if he wishes,” Conan said. “I hire my sword and my skill for a day, or for ten, but I am servant to no man, woman or god.”
“All the same,” she replied, “I am glad that you accompany me. I cannot remember ever speaking more than two words together to anyone other than my aunt, or Bombatta, or my dressing maids. You are very different, and interesting. It is all different and interesting. The sky and the stars and so many leagues and leagues of open space.”
He stared into her big brown eyes and felt a hundred years older than she. As lovely a maiden as he had ever seen, he thought, and so very truly the innocent indeed, unknowing of the feelings she could raise in a man. “It is a dangerous land,” he muttered, “and the mountains are more so, even without a Stygian sorcerer. This is no place for you.”
“It is my destiny,” she said simply, and he grunted.
“Why? Because it is written in the Scrolls of Skelos?”
“Because I was marked at birth. Look.”
Before his astonished eyes Jehnna tugged down the neck of her robes, shrugging, until her satiny olive-skinned breasts were bared almost to the nipples. Sweet mounds made to nestle in a man’s palms, the Cimmerian thought, his throat suddenly tight.
“See?” Jehnna said. “Here. This mark I bore at birth, naming my destiny. It is described in the scrolls, but it was the gods who chose me.”
There was a birthmark, he saw, in the valley between her breasts. A red eight-pointed star, no bigger than a man’s thumbnail and as precisely formed as if drawn by a craftsman.
Abruptly curved steel slashed down to shine in the firelight between them.
“Do not touch her, thief,” Bombatta grated.
“Not ever!”
Conan opened his mouth for an angry reply, then realized that he had indeed been stretching a hand toward the girl. The gleaming blade hung before his fingertips as if it was the tulwar he had meant to stroke. Furious with himself, Cimmerian straightened, returning Bombatta’s glare.
Jehnna’s eyes traveled from one man to the other, a strange expression crossing her face as if thoughts new and disturbing had come to her.
“It is late,” Conan said harshly. “Best we all sleep, for we must travel early.”
Bombatta held out his free hand to help Jehnna rise, still holding his blade before her as if it were a shield. Conan’s eyes did not leave those of the scarred warrior while the huge Zamoran backed away, leading Jehnna. The girl glanced once at the tall Cimmerian youth, her eyes troubled, but she allowed herself to be bundled into her blankets without speaking. As on the previous night Bombatta set himself before her as a guard.
Muttering curses under his breath, Conan wrapped himself in his own blankets. This was foolishness, he told himself. There were women enough in the world that he did not let himself be entangled by a girl who likely did not even know what she did. She was a child, no matter her age. He slept, and his sleep was filled with dreams of lush-bodied Taramis and the night of lust they had shared. Yet often, in those dreams, he would look, and it would be not Taramis he held, but Jehnna. His sleep was not a restful one.
Blackness hung thickly over Shadizar, and the tapestried halls of Taramis’ palace were empty as she made her way from her sleeping chamber. The only sound was the brushing of her long silken robe on the polished marble tiles of the corridors. Her astrologers and the priests of the ancient worship she revived came often to the great hall she entered, but the nocturnal visits that she made with increasing frequency, she made alone.
About the edges of the room cunningly hooded golden lamps gave off a soft glow that could have been moonlight, so pale was it. The floor was black marble, polished to a mirror sheen, and fluted alabaster columns supported the high, arched ceiling, tiled with onyx and set with sapphires and diamonds to represent the night sky, the sky as it would be on one night in each thousand years.
Centered beneath that false sky was a couch carved of crimson marble, polished with the hair of virgins, and on it lay what seemed to be the alabaster statue of a man with his eyes closed, nude and half again as large as any living man, more handsome than any mortal man could ever be. But a single thing marred the perfection. Sunk to the depth of half a finger joint in the broad forehead was a black depression, a circle as wide as man’s hand. There was about the figure a sense of timeless waiting.
Slowly Taramis approached the marble couch, stopping at its foot. Her gaze roamed the alabaster form, and her breath quickened. Many men had she had in her life, choosing the first most carefully at sixteen, choosing each since with as great a care. Men she knew as well as she knew the rooms of her own palace. But what would it be like to be the lover of … a god?
She slipped her robe from her shoulders and sank naked to her knees at the feet of the figure. No word i
n the Scrolls of Skelos required this of her, but she wanted more than even they promised.
Pressing her face to those cold, alabaster soles she whispered, “I am thine, O great Dagoth.”
A compulsion to go further than ever before seized her, and she rained moaning kisses on those feet. Slowly she worked her way upwards, leaving no portion of that pale surface undampened by her ardent lips, caressing it with her lush roundness, until she writhed atop the great form as she would atop a man. Trembling fingers reached up to softly stroke the face.
“I am thine, O great Dagoth,” she whispered again, “and forever will I be thine. When thou wakeneth I will build temples to thee, overturning the temples of other gods, but I will be more than thy priestess. Thy godly flesh will merge with mine, and I will hold myself chaste hereafter, save for thee. I will sit on thy right hand, and by thy grace will I receive the ultimate powers over life and death. Once more will the sacrifices be made to thee, and once more to thee will the nations bow. All this I vow, O great Dagoth, and seal it with my flesh and my soul.”
Suddenly her breath caught in her throat. That on which she lay had still the hardness of stone, but now it held the warmth of life. Not daring to believe, fearing that perhaps it was but the heat of her own body, absorbed, she brought her hands down over the broad, perfect shoulders to the deep chest. Everywhere was the warmth.
Almost at once it was gone again, and her last doubts were shattered by the unnatural quickness of its going. Her god had given her a sign. Her offering would be accepted; the rewards would be hers. Smiling, she let her own sleep claim her there, lying atop the form of the Sleeping God.
ix
Conan’s eyes narrowed as he studied what lay ahead. Shadows stretched before him, and behind the sun had not yet risen two handbreadths above the horizon. There were shadows in plenty on the sheer rock wall that faced them half a league on, the narrow lines of folds and creases in the stone, but no sign of any pass.
“Jehnna?” he called, looking over his shoulder.
He did not have to say more. All had fallen silent as they saw what they approached, and even the slender girl wore a worried frown.
“We must go this way,” she said insistently. “I know this is the right way. Straight ahead now. I know it.”
Conan booted his horse into a trot. Whatever lay ahead—and there had better be something, by all the gods—he was impatient to find out what it was.
He scanned the cliffs, running a league to the north and south of the point they rode toward. The lowest was at least fifty paces in height and topped with a jutting overhang, the highest was ten times that. Occasional vertical crevices and shadowed chimneys split the continuous front, but in those two leagues was nothing that even hinted at a passage through.
He could climb it, he knew. He had climbed higher cliffs and sheerer in the wind-swept mountain fastnesses of his native Cimmeria. Malak likely could, as well, and perhaps even Bombatta, but Akiro was no scaler of cliffs, and the Cimmerian could see no way at all to get Jehnna over them unless she grew wings. Wings. He hummed thoughtfully. Actual wings were out of the question, of course, but perhaps Akiro could provide an answer. Mayhap the old man could use his powers to lift himself and the girl to the top of the cliff while the rest of them climbed in more ordinary fashion.
Abruptly he realized what lay directly ahead of him. Straight ahead, she had said, and straight ahead was a narrow crevice, but a crevice that stretched deep into the cliff, losing his eyes with a sharp bend in fifty paces. He could not be so lucky, he was sure, that this would not be their path. Wings, he thought, would have been much better.
Conan looked around at the others. It was clear by their faces that they all saw what he had seen. Even Bombatta wore a doubtful grimace, and Malak was muttering prayers under his breath. Only Jehnna appeared sure, and even so the Cimmerian could not help asking.
“This?” She nodded firmly, and he sighed. “I will go first,” he said, loosening his broadsword in its worn leather scabbard. “Malak behind me, then Akiro and the packhorse, then Jehnna. Bombatta, you bring up the rear.” The scar-faced warrior nodded, easing his own curved blade. “And keep a watch above,” he finished. Though, he thought, what they could do if someone began dropping boulders or worse on them he could not imagine.
“Shakuru’s Burning Teeth,” Malak said sourly. “We could have been in Arenjun by now.”
Not answering, Conan rode into the narrow opening, and the rest followed. The sky became a thin strip directly overhead, and light faded till it almost seemed twilight was upon them once more. The high walls were barely separated enough to allow horse and rider to pass. Gray stone slid past, often no more than a fingerwidth from knees on either side.
On they rode, twisting, turning, doubling back on themselves, till only Conan’s instincts told him that they still moved westward. The sun stood directly overhead, now, throwing a cascade of fading shadows into the snaking gap.
Suddenly Conan drew rein, his nostrils flaring.
“What is it?” Bombatta called hoarsely.
“Have you no nose?” the Cimmerian demanded.
“Woodsmoke,” Akiro said.
“Aye,” Conan agreed. “And more than a campfire.”
“What do we do?” Malak wanted to know, and Conan snorted with brief laughter.
“What can we do, my friend? We ride on and see what’s burned.”
Three more bends the strait passage took, and then they were out of it. Out of the narrow crack through the mountain, and into a large village that butted against the steep side of the valley. Crude huts lined dusty paths that could not properly be called streets. On the far side of the village Conan noted half-a-score wispy columns of smoke, remnants of whatever had burned. A few naked children yelled and tumbled in the dirt with bony dogs, while their ragged elders, as filthy as the small ones if not more so, stared in dark-eyed surprise and wariness at the newcomers.
“Pull up the hood of your cloak, Jehnna,” the Cimmerian said quietly.
“It is hot,” she protested, but Bombatta jerked the white hood forward, hiding her face in its shade.
Conan nodded. As outlanders they might well have trouble just riding through this village, and most assuredly there was no way around it. There was no need to increase the chance by letting it be known they included a beautiful young girl in their number.
“Do not stop for anything,” he told the others, “until we are well beyond this place. Not for anything.” Resting a hand on his swordhilt, he twitched his reins and started forward. They rode in the same order in which they had traveled the narrow passage.
“Malak,” Akiro said, “if you see something you desire in this place, try not to steal it.”
“Eh?” Malak jerked his hand back from a basket of figs. “Fidesa’s Teats, old man, I am not a foo!.”
Suspicious eyes followed them, covetous eyes that caressed their horses and weapons, speculative eyes that tried to pierce Jehnna’s cloak. Yet they were not many for such a place, and as they came on the source of the smoke, ten patches of ash that had once been huts, Conan saw why there were not more. The villagers had gathered to watch a brutal entertainment.
Six soldiers in boiled leather breastplates and red-crested helms stood leaning on their spears and laughing in a wide circle around a woman who clutched a wooden staff taller than she and as thick as a man’s two thumbs. Her skin, as black as polished ebony, proclaimed her origin far to the south. A tightly bound strip of cloth about her small breasts and a slightly wider bit about her loins were all of the garb on her hard-muscled body, and a thick rope bound about one ankle kept her within a pace of a stake driven into the ground.
“Those men are not Zamorans,” Jehnna said. “This is Zamoran land, is it not?”
Conan did not think that it was the proper moment to explain the border situation to her. The men wore the armor of one of the Corinthian city-states. The mountains, on the border between Zamora and Corinthia, were claimed by both,
and the villages paid such taxes as they could not avoid to whomever sent soldiers, denying the sovereignty of either when there were no soldiers.
The black woman stooped slowly, not taking her eyes from the encircling soldiers, to feel the knot at her ankle. As her fingers touched the rope, one of the Corinthians dashed forward, jabbing with his spear. The woman leaped back as far as the rope would allow, the staff spinning in her hands like a thing alive. The spearman stopped his rush, laughing, and another, behind her, jumped forward. Again she darted away from the spearpoint, then had to dodge yet another.
“What did this woman do to deserve this?” Jehnna demanded. Conan stifled an oath, and gripped his sword hilt more firmly.
A dirty-faced man on the edge of the crowd looked up at Jehnna, frowning. “She’s a bandit.” He twisted his neck, trying to see her face under the edge of her hood. “We took another, and killed him slow, but the soldiers came before we could get to her.”
“They’ll do for her,” another man said, joining the attempt to make out Jehnna’s features. A swollen bruise stood out blue beneath the grime on his forehead. “They shouldn’t have given that stick back, though. She killed a man with it, and near got away.” His gaze slid from Jehnna to each of the others in turn, and his mouth pursed thoughtfully.
“Bombatta,” Jehnna said, “you must stop them. Whatever she has done, these men have no right to treat her so. They are Corinthians, and this is Zamoran land.”
“Bandits and thieves deserve to die,” the scar-faced Zamoran said harshly. “And it is time we were going on.” He snatched for her bridle, missing as she pulled her horse around to face Conan.
“And will you do nothing either?” she demanded.
Conan drew a deep breath, but the situation had gone beyond cursing. More villagers were turning to look at them, weighing the value of their possessions with intent eyes, trying to see if Jehnna were pretty enough for the auction block. Such were not usually dangerous in the open and the daylight, but their blood was heated by the bandits’ raid, and by the soldiers’ cruel sport. The desire was there, writ plain on their faces in licked lips and shifting glances. In moments, soldiers or no, daylight or no, these men would try for fresh prey, and an attempt to leave now would only set off the eruption on the instant.