“And if Jhandar looses the magicks that he did when he was defeated before?” Conan said. “There are no shamans to contain them here.”
They stared at him, Akeba’s false mirth fading. Sharak held a corner of his robes in two hands, his dampness forgotten, and Conan thought he heard Tamur mutter a prayer.
Then the men from the galley were clambering up the beach, the half score who had not succumbed to fear or good sense, led by Akman with a boarding pike in his calloused hands. The Hyrkanian nomads came too, cursing at the wet as they waded through the surf. A strange army, the Cimmerian thought, with which to save the world.
He turned from the sea. They followed, a file of desperate men snaking into the Turanian night.
“Must I actually put a knife in her heart?”
Davinia’s question jangled in Jhandar’s mind, which had been almost settled for his period of meditation. “Do you regret your decision?” he demanded. In his thoughts, he commanded her: have no regrets. Murder a princess in sorcerous rites. Be bound to me by ties stronger than iron.
“No regrets, my Great Lord,” she said slowly, toying with the feathers of her girdle. When she lifted her gaze to his her sapphire eyes were clear and untroubled. “She has lived a useless life. At least her death will be to some purpose.”
Despite himself he could not stop the testing. “And if I said there was no purpose? Just her death?” Her frown almost stopped his heart.
“No purpose? I do not like getting blood on my hands.” She tossed her blonde mane petulantly. “The feel of it will not wash away for days. I will not do it if there is no purpose.”
“There is a purpose,” he said hastily, “which I cannot tell you until the proper time.” And to forestall questions he hurried from the room.
His nerves burned with how close he had come to dissuading her. Almost, he thought, there would be no joy in achieving all his ambitions without her. Some rational corner of his mind told him the thought was lust-soaked madness. The fruition of his plans would hold her to him, for where would she then find one of greater power or wealth? With the taking of Yasbet—if she chose to call herself so, so he would think of her—all would be in place. His power in Turan would be complete. But Davinia … .
He was still struggling with himself when he settled in the simple chamber, before the Pool of the Ultimate. That would not do. He must be empty of emotion for the Power to fill him. Carefully he focused on his dreams. War and turmoil would fill the nations, disorder hastened by his ever-growing band of the Chosen. Only he would be able to call a halt to it. Kings would kneel to him. Slowly the pool began to glow.
From the branches of the tree, Conan studied the compound of the Cult of Doom. Ivory domes gleamed in the dappled moonlight, and purple spires thrust into the sky, but no hint of light showed within those high marble walls, and no one stirred. The Cimmerian climbed back down to the ground, to the men waiting there.
“Remember,” he said, addressing himself mainly to the former galley slaves, “any man with a weapon must be slain, for they will not surrender.” The Hyrkanians nodded somberly; they knew this well.
“But the black-robed one with the yellow skin is mine,” Akeba reminded them. Time and again on the short march he had reiterated his right to vengeance for his daughter.
“The black-robe is yours,” Akman said nervously. “I but wish you could take the demons as well.”
Sharak shook his staff, gripping it with both hands as if it were a lifeline. “I will handle the demons,” he said. “Bring them to me.” A wind from the sea moaned in the treetops as if in answer, and he subsided into mutters.
“Let us be on with it,” Tamur said, fidgeting—whether with eagerness or nervousness, Conan could not tell.
“Stay together,” the Cimmerian said by way of a last instruction. “Those who become separated will be easy prey.” With that he led them down to the towering white wall.
Grapnels taken from the galley swung into the air, clattered atop the wall and took hold. Men swarmed up ropes like ants and dropped within.
Once inside the compound Conan barely noticed the men following him, weapons in hand, falling back on either side so that he was the point of an arrow. His own blade came into his hand. Jhandar. Ignoring other buildings, Conan strode toward the largest structure of the compound, an alabaster palace of golden onion-domes and columned porticos and towers of porphyry. Jhandar would be there in his palace. Jhandar and Yasbet, if she still lived. But first Jhandar, for there could be no true safety for Yasbet until the necromancer was dead.
Suddenly there was a saffron-robed man before him, staring in astonishment at the intruders. Producing a dagger, he screamed, “In the name of Holy Chaos, die!”
A fool to waste time with shouts, Conan thought, wrenching his blade free so the man’s body could fall. And in Crom’s name, what god was this Chaos?
But the noise produced another shaven-headed man, this with a spear that he thrust at Conan, sounding the same cry. The Cimmerian grasped the shaft to guide the point clear of his body; the point of his broadsword ended the strange shout in a gurgle of blood.
Then hundreds of saffron-robed men and women were rushing into the open. At first they seemed only curious, then those nearest Conan saw the bodies and screamed. In an instant panic seized them by the throat, and they became a boiling mass, seeking only escape, yet almost overwhelming those they feared in a tide of numbers.
Forgetting his own instructions to stay together, Conan began to force his way through the pack of struggling flesh, toward the palace. Jhandar, was the only thought in his head. Jhandar.
“Great Lord, the compound is under attack.”
Jhandar stirred fretfully in his communion with the Power. It took a moment for him to pull his eyes from the glowing pool and focus them on Suitai, standing ill at ease in the unnatural glow that filled the chamber.
“What? Why are you disturbing me here, Suitai? You know it is forbidden.”
“Yes, Great Lord. But the attack … .”
That time the word got through to Jhandar. “Attack? The army?” Had disaster come on him yet again?
“No, Great Lord. I know not who they are, or how many. The entire compound is in an uproar. It is impossible to count their numbers. I slew one; he was filthy and half-naked, and bore the welts of a lash.”
“A slave?” Jhandar asked querulously. It was hard to think, with his mind attuned to the communion and that communion not fully completed. “Take the Chosen and dispose of these interlopers, whoever they are. Then restore order to the compound.”
“All of the Chosen, Great Lord?”
“Yes, all of them,” the necromancer replied irritably. Could the man not do as he was told? He must settle his mind, complete his absorption of the Power.
“Then you will delay the ceremony, Great Lord?”
Jhandar blinked, found his gaze drifting to the Pool of the Ultimate, and jerked it back. “Delay? Of course not. Think you I need those fools’ rapturous gazes to perform the rite?” Desperately he fought to stop his head spinning, to think clearly. “Take the Chosen as I commanded you. I will myself bring the girl to the Chamber of Sacrifice and do what is necessary. Go!”
Bowing, the black-robed Khitan sped away, glad to be gone from the presence of that which was bound in that room.
Jhandar shook his head and peered into the pool. Glowing mists filled the limits of the wards,—an unearthly dome that seemed to draw him into its depths. Angrily he pushed that feeling aside, though he could not rid himself of it. He was tired, that was all. There was no need to complete the communion, he decided. Disturbed as he was, completion might take until dawn, and he had no time to wait. The girl must be his tonight. As it was the Power flowed along his bones, coursed in his veins. He would perform the rite now.
Gathering his robes about him, he left to fetch Yasbet and Davinia to the Chamber of Sacrifice.
XXV
Warily, sword at the ready, Conan moved along one wall of a palace co
rridor, with no eye for rich tapestries or ancient vases of rare Khitan porcelain. Akeba stalked along the other, tulwar in hand. As a pair of wolfhounds they hunted.
The Cimmerian did not know where the others were. From time to time the clash of steel and the cries of dying men sounded from outside, or echoed down the halls from other parts of the palace. Who won and who died he could not tell, and at that moment he did not care. He sought Jhandar, and instinct told him he drew closer with every step.
Silent as death three saffron-robed men hurtled from a side corridor, scimitars slashing.
Conan caught a blade on his broadsword, sweeping it toward the wall and up. As his own blade came parallel to the floor he slipped it off the other in a slashing blow that half-severed his opponent’s head. Flashing swiftly on, his sword axed into the second man’s head a heartbeat before Akeba’s steel buried itself in the man’s ribs. Twice-slain, the body fell atop that of he who had faced the Turanian at the first attack.
“You work well,” Akeba grunted, wiping his blade on a corpse’s robe. “You should think of the army if we live to leave this … .” His words trailed off as both men became aware of a new presence in the corridor. The black-robed Khitan assassin.
Unhurriedly he moved toward them, with the casual confidence of a great beast that knows its kill is assured. His hands were empty of weapons, but Conan remembered well the dead in Samarra’s yurt, with no wound on any but looks of horror on every face, and Zorelle, dead from a touch.
Conan firmed his grip on the worn leather hilt of his broadsword, but as he stepped forward Akeba laid a hand on his arm. The soldier’s voice was as cold as frozen iron. “He is mine. By right of blood, he is mine.”
Reluctantly Conan gave way, and the Turanian moved forward alone. Of necessity the big Cimmerian waited to watch his friend do battle. Jhandar was still uppermost in his mind, but the way to him led deeper into the palace, past the murderously maneuvering pair before him.
The Khitan smiled; his hand struck like a serpent, and, like a mongoose, Akeba was not there. The assassin flowed from the path of the soldier’s flashing steel, yet the smile was gone from his face. Like malefic dancers the two men moved, lightning blade against fatal touch, each aware of the other’s deadliness, each intent on slaying. Abruptly the Khitan deciphered the pattern of Akeba’s moves; the malevolent hand darted for the soldier’s throat. Desperately Akeba blocked the blow, and it struck instead his sword arm. Crying out, the Turanian staggered back, tulwar falling, arm dangling, clawing with his good hand for his dagger. The assassin paused to laugh before closing for the kill.
“Crom!” Conan roared, and leapt.
Only the Khitan’s unnatural suppleness saved him from the blade that struck where he had been. Smiling again, he motioned the Cimmerian to come to him, if he dared.
“I promised to let you kill him,” Conan said to Akeba, without taking his eyes from the black-robed man, “not the other way around.”
The Turanian barked a painful laugh. He clutched his dagger in one hand, but the other twitched helplessly at his side and only the tapestry-covered wall kept him from falling. “As you’ve interfered,” he said between clenched teeth, “then you must kill him for me, Cimmerian.”
“Yes,” the assassin hissed. “Kill me, barbarian.”
Without warning, Conan lunged, blade thrusting for the black-robed one’s belly, but the killer seemed to glide backwards, stopping just beyond the sword’s point.
“You must do better, barbar. Che Fan was wrong. You are just another man. I do not think you truly entered the Blasted Lands, but even if you did, you survived only by luck. I, Suitai, will put an end to you here. Come to me and find your death.”
As the tall man spoke Conan moved slowly forward, sliding his feet along the marble floor so that he was at no time unbalanced. His sword he held low before him, point flickering from side to side like the tongue of a viper, light from the burnished brass lamps on the walls glittering along the steel, and though the Khitan spoke confidently, he kept an eye on that blade.
Abruptly, as the assassin finished his speech, Conan tossed his sword from right hand to left, and Suitai’s gaze followed involuntarily. In that instant the Cimmerian jerked a tapestry from the wall to envelop the other man. Even as the hanging tangled about the Khitan’s head and chest Conan lunged after, steel ripping through cloth and flesh, grating on bone.
Slowly the assassin heaved aside the portion of the tapestry that covered his head. With glazing eyes he stared in disbelief at the blade standing out from his chest, the dark blood that spread to stain his robes.
“Not my death,” Conan told him. “Yours.”
The Khitan tried to speak, but blood welled from his mouth, and he toppled, dead as he struck the marble floor. Conan tugged his blade free, cleaning it on the tapestry as he might had it been thrust into offal.
“I give you thanks, my friend,” Akeba said, pushing unsteadily away from the wall. His face gleamed with the sweat of pain, and his arm still dangled at his side, but he managed to stand erect as he looked on the corpse of his daughter’s murderer. “But now you have hunting of your own to do.”
“Jhandar,” Conan said, and without another word he was moving forward again.
Like a great hunting cat he strode through halls lit by glittering brass lamps, but bare of life. The gods smiled on those who did not meet him in those passages, for he would not now have slowed to see if they bore weapons or not. His blood burned for Jhandar’s death. Any who hindered or slowed him now would perish in a pool of their own blood.
Then great bronze doors stood before him, doors scribed with a pattern that seemed to have no pattern, that rejected the eye’s attempt to focus on it. Setting hands against those massive metal slabs, muscles cording with strain, he forced the portals open. Sword at the ready, he went through.
In an instant the horror of that great circular chamber engraved itself on his brain. Yasbet lay chained and gagged on a black altar, to one side of her Davinia, knife upraised to plunge into the bound girl’s heart, to the other Jhandar, an arcane chant rising from his mouth to pierce the air. Over the entire blood-chilling tableau a shimmering silvery-azure dome was forming.
“No!” Conan shouted.
Yet even as he dashed forward he knew he would not reach them before that knife had done its terrible work. He fumbled for his dagger. Davinia froze at his cry. Jhandar’s incantation died as he spun to confront the man who had dared interrupt the rite; the glow disappeared as his words ceased. Desperately Conan hurled his dagger—toward Davinia, for she still held her gleaming blade poised above Yasbet—but Jhandar turning, moved between them. The mage screamed as the needle-sharp steel sliced into his arm.
Clutching his wound, blood dripping between his fingers, Jhandar turned a frightful glare on Conan. “By the blood and earth and Powers of Chaos I summon you,” he intoned. “Destroy this barbarian?” Davinia shrank back, as if she would have fled had she dared.
The floor trembled, and Conan skidded to a halt as chunks of marble erupted almost beneath his feet. Leather-skinned and fanged, a sending such as those he had faced before clawed its way clear of dirt and stone. With a wild roar, the Cimmerian brought his blade down with all his might in an overhead blow, slicing through the demoniac skull to the shoulders. Yet, unbleeding and undying, it struggled to reach him, and he must needs chop and chop again, hacking the monstrous thing apart. Even then its fragments twitched in unabated fury. More creatures tore through stone between him and the altar, and still more to either side of him, snarling in bloodlust. As a man might reap hay Conan worked his sword, steel rising and falling tirelessly. Severed limbs and heads and chunks of obscene flesh littered the floor, yet there were more, always more, ripping passage from the bowels of the earth. Cut off from Yasbet and the altar, it was but a matter of time before he was overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
A smile, pained, yet tinged with satisfaction at the Cimmerian’s coming doom, appeared on Jhandar’s
face. “So Suitai lied,” he rasped. “I will settle with him for it. But now, barbar, pause a moment in your exertions, if you can, to watch the fate of this woman, Esmira. Davinia! Attend the rite as I commanded you, woman!”
Terror twisting her face, Davinia raised the silver-bladed dagger once more. Her eyes bulged when they strayed to the deformed creatures battling Conan, but her hand was steady. Jhandar began again his invocation of the Power.
Raging, Conan tried to clear a path to the altar with his sword, but for each diabolic attacker he hewed to the floor, it seemed that two more appeared.
There was a commotion behind the Cimmerian, and a saffron-robed man staggered into his view, blood streaming down his face, weakly attempting to lift his sword. After him followed Sharak. Conan was so amazed that he hesitated with sword raised, staring. In that momentary respite the creatures tightened their circle about him, and he was forced to redouble his efforts to stop their advance.
Sharak’s staff cracked down on his opponent’s head; blood splattered from that shaven skull, and its owner fell, his sword sliding across the floor to stop against the altar. Irritably Jhandar looked over his shoulder, but did not stop his chant.
Conan lopped off a fang-mouthed head and kicked the headless body, now clawing blindly, into the path of another creature. His sword took an arm, then a leg, sliced away half of a skull, but he knew his sands had almost run out. There were just too many.
Abruptly Sharak was capering beside him, waving his staff wildly.
“Be gone from here,” Conan shouted. “You are too old to—”
Sharak’s staff thumped a leathery skull, and the creature screamed. At the altar Jhandar jerked as if he had felt the blow. Even the other beings froze as sparks ran along the struck creature’s blue-gray skin. With a clap, as of thunder, it was gone, leaving only oily, black smoke that drifted upward.
“I told you it had power!” the old astrologer cried wildly. He struck out again; more greasy smoke rose toward the vaulted ceiling.